Board of Trustees Work Session 2/25/2025 @ 6 PM

001good evening and uh Welcome to our February 25th uh board meeting thank you all for joining us on this evening at this time may we pause for a moment of meditation uh followed by the Pledge of Allegiance thank you I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with li again I would like to thank each and every one of you for being with us on this evening uh we'll Begin by reading our statement of this meeting is held in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act the news media has been notified and a copy of the agenda has been made available to the public this meeting is open to the public and the public is welcome to attend in

002person all persons wishing to attend uh the meeting by virtual means may do so via YouTube Su School District uh board meetings and Su School District's Facebook page Vision Su school district is committed to educating empowering and enriching the lives of all students to reach their full potential Mission Su school district is committed to providing a safe nurturing and high quality educational environment that supports diversity and equi students for local and Global success ladies and gentlemen tonight we have our board members uh with us uh that are present myself Shan Reagan our board chair Mr Brian a Area 1 Vice chair Dr Gloria Lee area 7 clerk Miss Britney English who I do not see at the very moment area [Music] two Dr Raph W kanty senior Area 3 Miss tyara cower Johnson area 4

003Mr Matthew m McLoud area 6 who's not with us on this evening uh Miss Bonnie Disney Esquire area 9 Miss Deborah McQueen who's joining us tonight our Shaw Air Force Base representative we have our superintendent here with us this evening Dr William R our administrative manager Miss Shante Scott is present along with members uh of the executive team as I look in the audience every school is represented here tonight as well so certainly we thank you all uh for joining us and being present at this meeting we will now move according to our agenda for this evening and we will now go to the opening excuse me the agenda which is item two 2.1 the approval of the agenda and upon consensus uh the agenda can stand approve uh hearing no objections at this time

004the agenda stands approved we'll now move to item number three 3.1 any board announcements at this time would like to inform us that on tomorrow the house will vote on a a voucher bill they did so two years ago and the component dealing with t tuition was struck down by the Supreme Court of South Carolina uh there will be another test this year uh but any way you look at it uh the vote tomorrow if it pass will take funds away from public schools so please call uh your house members tonight and encourage them to vote against that measure thank you thank you sir uh any other members of the board have any announcements at this time hearing none item 3.2 committee reports and recommendations do we have any at this time Mr chair yes

005uh the policy committee would like to have another meeting um I will be in contact with the members of the policy committee meeting this week to schedule something hopefully with uh by next week all right thank you Mr Austin uh any other board members any committee reports or recommendations yes Mr chair yes uh for the finance committee meeting we had hoped to meet last Wednesday but with the inclement weather that meeting was cancelled it is rescheduled for tomorrow 5:00 p.m. at the district office the public is welcome to attend all right thank you Miss Johnson all right any others hearing none item four we're now down to the superintendent's report and Dr Wright I'm going to allow you to take over um at this time for items 4.1 through 4.6 uh thank you Mr chair

006um we we um welcome this opportunity to update the board on uh items uh through the superintendent's report uh want to begin tonight with 4.1 um that will be a reiteration and um addition of some of the goals that uh that I've set for us for this year and so if you bear with me we'll get through that document um immediately uh after the end of the meeting uh I will also share um electronic copies of this document with each member of the board a superintendent typically sets between two and five key goals for their performance evaluation with each goal including measurable indicators to track progress throughout the year the exact number depends on the priorities of the school district and the superintendent's specific Focus area I've been asked to identify my goals for the

007rest of the school year I will categorize these goals into three major categories and talk briefly about each of them additionally I will state a couple of what we're calling honorable mentions while these items are most AFF affectionately referred to as goals I'd like to also call them priorities for the sake of this discussion The Continuous value added Improvement of the school district is my ultimate goal but here are goals for our consideration goal number one focus on student achievement of course any superintendent leading any District would be remiss to have goals that do not include student achievement Improvement objectives we are no exception here in SSD that work is particularly important because our student accountability data does not always reflect the amazing work that takes place in many of our classrooms however that is

008not an excuse or even an explanation for the need to improve there are a few main focuses in our goal setting for academic Improvement number one improve student proficiency by a minimum of 6% and that's every school every classroom typically proficiency improvements of 6% take care of growth measures as well number two goal is to reduce the number of below average and unsatisfactory schools in our district number three continue to evaluate and provide Ade quate support to our most needy schools in our district no matter how they're classified our schools are working to achieve these goals by focusing on targeted academic interventions which include what are not limited to expanding tutoring services and providing professional development for teachers to enhance instructional strategies we are also working to enhance our ability to analyze data derived from

009formative and summative assessments to improve student performance we're also looking at attendance records and behavioral reports our directors of Student Success and school Improvement are both busy monitoring atrisk students and providing solutions to help our students stay on task and on track for graduation the director of school Improvement is meeting with principles as a part of her CIP SLT turnaround monthly review work is also under the under way to reduce the number of priority schools in the district which is evidenced by some of the schools who have already exited despite the length of stay of each School experiences we will have some schools that will continue to exit over the next couple of years because of improvements in student achievement we will continue to address special education student performance as well in the state of

010South Carolina TSI CSI a SII and priority are designations for schools that are identified as needing additional support these designations are based on school performance and are used to help improve student outcomes so here are some explanations CSI stands for comprehensive support and Improvement these are schools that are in the bottom 5% of Title One schools in the state or have a graduation rate below 70% atsi stands for additional targeted support and Improvement these are schools where more than one subgroup one or more subgroups of students are performing at or below the state's CSI schools targeted support and Improvement TSI are schools where one or more subgroups are performing in the bottom 10% across all accountability indicators and priority schools are schools that are in the bottom 10% of schools Statewide in overall school performance

011schools identified as CSI or TSI receive technical assistance and are assigned a state level transformation coach schools are expected to develop School Improvement plans to address challenges and improve student performance the South Carolina Department of Education identifies schools with underperforming accountability subgroups annually we have already had one school to exit atsi status this year and that's Crestwood High School while we're celebrating the success of the air for mentioned School Improvement efforts continue for the following CSI schools at the beginning of the year we had Lakewood High picala Springs and re Davis picala Springs and Ari Davis exited CSI this school year we have priority schools there are Bates Middle School Cherryville Chestnut Oaks middle and Willow Drive and then our atsi schools are Alice Drive Elementary we mentioned Crestwood high but they've exited High Hills

012Elementary kingsbery elementary Manchester Elementary Sumpter high school and Wilder Elementary additionally Milwood Lamyra and Alice Drive Middle have all exited TSI status we have two schools in our district that have the unsatisfactory designation they are Bates Middle School and Cherryville middle school there are 11 schools that currently have a below average designation the elementary schools are Croswell lamara Manchester picala Springs rafting Creek REI Davis and Willow Drive Middle School is chestnut Oaks and all three of our high schools right now are rated at below average according to the accountability data you will hear uh in a few minutes that most of these schools are only one or two points from moving to the next level and so if you look at the accountability points that'll be shared uh you will see that most of these

013schools have received extra Personnel to enhance or improve instruction we've also provided additional support through requests of the principles where possible mentorship has also been provided uh as we heard earlier from the state and local levels goal number two focus on facilities we have a facility defit in Sumpter School District I will continue to include a goal of working with the appropriate people both internally and externally to work on our facilities I would like for us to consider and use as a barometer the acronym of fair f air when we're considering our school buildings the f is for facilities the A is for assessment and Analysis the I is for inspection and investment and the r stands for replacement restoration or repurpose as important as the other gold barometers we set are we must in

014SSD have a critical mass focus on next steps concerning facilities unfortunately in the state of South Carolina the scde does not provide assistance with the assessment and Analysis of facilities therefore we will have to do so while we had a facility study done in 2018 that work at a minimum must be updated our district is working to create an RFP to look at an updated or new study we must know what we're working with from the experts out of the study we hope to be able to identify specific needs for school replacement Andor Renovations during the 2025 2026 school year goal number three focus on human capital human resource development continues to be critical as well as in Suter school district and while we have worked diligently to hire new employees that work is never

015ending and will continue to remain a part of our goals we continue to seek innovative ways to recruit and provide opportunities for our employees we will focus on recruiting quality talent in conjunction with enhancing the talent we already have here in our district we'll do this by three ways one we will seek continue to seek more ways to identify and recruit quality Talent from within as well as from outside sources we will partner with agencies that understand the uniqueness of our district when necessary presently budget meetings are being held with each principal to ascertain current building needs to include Personnel we are looking at ways to streamline needs for employees including classroom allocations to see areas where we can reduce class sizes particularly in the lower grades to provide more personalized instruction number two we're

016also looking at bus routes to make them more efficient to help with that Staffing as well and we hope to have a new plan in place by June 30th of 2025 number three I am challenging us to work professionally to develop the employees that we have to be 21st century ready as we modernize practices Etc to ensure that we're getting the most out of our employees in an efficient way this includes looking at modernizing processes Etc along with specific emphasis on onboarding we also need to help our teachers by providing more modern needs training to ensure that they are equipped to deal with today's learner this requires a rebranding of sorts with the way that we train teachers while we will begin the analysis of such this year that work is and will be an

017ongoing process process as for our alal mentions we will continue to address transportation we talked a little bit briefly about that but this year I have taxed a transportation director with looking at routes I believe that we can certainly be more efficient in that area and look forward to getting a thorough updated look at our routes hopefully this will make us even more effective and efficient in the delivery of children to and from school there's not been a route audit from what I'm hearing done in several years code of conduct as stated although we have Reen a reduction in infractions to the tune of about 52% the work of maintaining a good code of conduct requires continuous evaluation and updating we're beginning that work in preparation for the 2025 2026 school year this committee comprised

018of diff District level Personnel teachers School administrators parents students is scheduled to meet March 27 2025 and those goals are respectfully submitted by me all right um Dr r i I'll take a moment and ask any of the board members if they have any questions uh or any clarification that is needed at this time pertaining to that particular point or your goals that was shared uh board members are there any questions at this time Mr chair yes I do have a question well I have a comment and a question first of all thank you Dr Wright for sharing those with us um it sounded like some of them were uh giving us some of them did give us the information that we need to uh be able to fully assess if they are specific measurable

019attainable relevant and time bound and the ones that aren't tied to that smart method do you mind updating those so that we have something by which we can go by to gauge how we're what we're doing and how we're doing uh yes ma'am I can do that thank you Mr chair yes uh this is Dr wght Dr Wright were these goals presented at the start of the 2425 school year or is these goals different from the 24 the start of the 24 25 school year uh there there were documents shared in September uh with the board um what I what I did um is uh streamlined them um I've had the goals all year but I streamlined them and so we started presenting them a couple of meetings ago so it's just a more indepth

020uh report of those goals or there's some slight changes to it yes sir okay all right uh and yes Mr superintendent yes sir in in your opinion yes sir are these how well integrated are these goals into the goals of each department and school and do you feel that at each level of our operations that these goals are attainable by the end of this school year uh the answer to the first question is we we've been discussing and talking about um uh these these things since actually since I arrived but certainly throughout this school year and uh and yes sir I do believe that um these items are attainable and we're working diligently um and you'll hear some more information a little bit later on about the progress that has been made thus far and

021we continue to make make it uh we we are clear on the fact that um continuous Improvement is just that so um I'm certain that even at the end of this year uh we will U develop retool retweet uh the things that you've heard tonight but uh the answer to the question is yes sir I do believe there's progress and uh we're looking forward to um being able to uh see here and celebrate those successes while we're moving into uh the next things on the list M Mr chairman yes question go ahead for three years of your Administration you have provided a goal for student performance of 6% annually uh cumulatively at the end of June um that that should be 18% growth from the time you took office do you think that's realistic at

022this point in some areas yes um it it will it it may not be realistic across the board we we can get that information in terms of how we progressed so far and get back to you and of course accountability data comes out a little bit later than June so uh but we're we're on the way and will you be able to provide us with data that will reflect the growth in student performance over the three years period at the end of June absolutely yes sir well I can give you two years at the end of June won't have the third one yet and my my other concern is uh can can you tell us what your your vision is for the unclassified students um those who whose units are so negligible that they will

023perhaps never qualify for graduation what what what what is your goal your vision for for them as with every student student it is about continuous learning and improvements and meeting students where they are and as we identify needs um we we work diligently um as as all public schools try to do um to meet students where they are um sometimes that doesn't always show an accountability data but the but the um the goal is for students to grow and get better can you can you tell us how many unclassified students we have do I I don't know that I have that information in front of us we can get it back to you though thank you thank you so very much all right thank you Dr KY uh any other questions at this time yes

024yes um Dr Wright yes ma'am when you talk about student achiev I think basically are you talking about the core subjects uh for example you're not the state doesn't evaluate uh welding that's correct but but if we're going to look at something that can be uh used to determine 6% isn't that going to be English math science is that what we're going to be using uh are are you going to be using the the status of the school performance um Collective ly um are you going to break it down into the core subjects science English we we will look at everything that is uh outlined on the accountability measure uh data measures uh for the state of South Carolina so whatever um our instruments allow us to evaluate that's what we'll do thank you yes

025ma'am Mr chair go ahead Dr Wright um this may not be the pledge of the board but it would certainly help me if you were to revamp your goals to smart goals I think I heard Miss cower Johnson speak about them being smart goals and some of them not being smart goals would you mind revamping those to be smart goals but also could you provide us with the metrics that you're going to use to measure growth in the district as well as data points for the midpoint of the year uh considering now we're in the second um we've come a long way I will say that um our building leaders have really been encouraging the teachers to make sure that they are accountable for students but I know that it's still not where I want

026it to be I want it to be 100% so that every day every student is accounted for and so that's the biggest challenge is making sure that we're receiving accurate data because if we don't truy report is always going to be skewed we may have more cronic absente cronic absenteeism for students which is reported because that's all absences versus a lower number for truancy and Mr chair if I can build on that are we finding that um we have repeat offenders or families or do they just kind of vary from year to year we do have repeat a offenders um it's a culture for some parents um it's difficult for our transient families to have their kids to school on a regular basis we have abusers of homebound services so it's and then we have

027a lot of sick children in our district so it varies it can be repeat offenders or it could be a new situation thank you you're welcome um I have a question um just for clarity so when you make mention of the things that you're seeing in attendance do you all work together and that's when you refer to mtss and then they push out the services from what the district level School level how how does that work that's the ideal situation where when a student is identified a team is supposed to come together in the school to service that student when they're implementing the attendance intervention plan it should be a team of folk in that building trying to find out why is Joyce not me Joyce not coming to school and so hopefully that encompasses

028the mtss staff person as well yeah and and and I I guess I would develop another question from that because you use the word suppose so with using suppose are you sure that that is taking place or H how do we make sure that that is happening because you said it's supposed to be happening when I speak with my attendance Personnel sometimes they don't always agree that they're a part of those meetings so I encourage them to make sure you I find out who your mtss person is and you should be a part of that meeting because you will speak from the attendance lens for that student so so these meetings are happening you're you're telling us that these meetings are taking place in every school that we're talking about you talking about attendance intervention

029plans or mtss meetings well I'm going back to the meetings that you referred to when you said supposed to be happening so attendance intervention plans are happening in schools whether or not that Encompass the MTS s person I'm not sure that would be a Dr Harriet question okay yes all right all right uh any other questions Mr chair yes so miss Perkins is there a districtwide attendance strategy a plan to try to curtail some of this inconsistency when it comes to recording attendance um the issue that Dr Reagan brought up about the meetings that are supposed to happen is there a comprehensive plan to try to curve the truy problem that we have The Chronic absenteeism problem that we have in the district or is it a Down at the school level that each school

030is basically responsible for devising their own plan of how to develop it right now is at the school level each individual school okay thank you you're welcome Mr chair yes as we have spoken the most important thing to for our child's learning is the face to face with a teacher therefore any if a student is out 20 days may as well start over because it's going to be almost impossible to catch up with what that student has missed and so my question is since attendance is that important to the academic success of anybody in Suter School District or any other public school what are the teeth that we're using to enforce attendance is it just nice do students in their mind say oh well I can just miss it's not going to be a problem

031does I mean what is what are how are we enforcing something as important as attendance the enforcement has to I would have to have the support of the building leaders if we're not when when I was a teacher our first line of defense was Joyce didn't come to school today the teacher called the teacher called to see where Joyce is that's our first line of defense on that third day for sure the teacher called if Joyce hasn't come to school then that teacher will let the building leader know we need to find Joyce that's where we need I think to go back to I need the I'm one person over 13,000 I need it to happen in the buildings where we are accountable for our students I worry that we are not all not everybody

032but we are not accountable for our students sometimes we don't know who's in that classroom and who is not in that classroom and so I have to rely on the clerks to inform me after they've been out five days 10 days that hey Joyce Miss Perkins what do we need to do the kiddo isn't coming and then I make the calls to the parent where's where's the student so it's a c elective we need everybody in the district to fight this attendance battle it's a battle um now there was a person appointed to take on the schoolwide initiative in December I've not had a conversation with that person but I do what I can do and that is to inform the tenis clerks who I work with we got to find where these students are

033and we have to keep up with them right one other question please truancy is that a fancy name for cutting class it could be but if a teacher is not accurately taking attendance truancy will only show up if I have four blocks and three of my teachers take attendance and one don't then I'm not going to come up on the treny report or if one teacher takes attendance and three don't I'm not going to show up on the truy report so it requires accurate attendance taking I I'm not understanding this I taught for 28 years taking attendance was the first thing you did teacher 101 it was teacher 101 you had this little blue thing and you wrote down who wasn't in class and you turned it in and we had a large school I

034need the support of the building leaders to continue to encourage the teachers to know who's in the classroom on a daily basis so how do we get the building leaders attention Dr right I I think they're listening I'm more concerned about if a traumatic experience happened and you have to pull that roster and the teacher don't know who's in that building that's right I'm concerned about that that's right that's a passion for me because the way the world is going we're praying that it doesn't happen but if if you don't have that roster of who's in your class checked off let me ask one more question please let's say the building a leader is doing everything she or he can do we have any way to go to the court system we do and try

035to get whoever is in charge of that child this year I've taken three families to truy court yes ma'am three is not much though six kids all right that's a lot all right any other questions at this time Dr yes I don't really have a a question but more so a statement um when we talk about preparing our children to be college career Andor military ready have we not looked at technology as a way of capturing accurate attendance I mean all all of our kids are issued School IDs is there not a way to encode our school IDs where they can swipe their cards when they're coming through the weapon detection system is there not a way to put something at the door of the classroom where they can swipe their cards that's capturing their

036attendance I mean we I understand in Miss Disney I do remember that in class where they would record attendance manually but I mean we're in 2025 we need to be utilizing technology to Aid our buildings Aid our teachers in capturing this information so that you can do your job so that we can do our job and so that we can have an accurate account of how many kids are in our building how many kids are actually in our classroom on a day-to-day basis so that's just food for thought for the board and for this District yes uh Dr Lee I just wanted to ask what action is being taken to a teacher that is not taking um attendance because how are they grading these kids how are they able to say who's failing and who's

037passing if they're not an attendance what action is being taken I mean what has a teacher ever been written up has anybody been suspended what has happened that's above my scope I'm sorry I can't answer that one okay thank you you're welcome said you can't answer that no that's I don't have an influence on being able to um hold a teacher accountable okay the grading manual states that if the student is not in class they supposed to receive a zero until they make up missed work okay all right yes that that really wasn't the answer I was expecting because I want to know what is happening to the teacher we already talked about the student not being in the class we already talked about the absence what is happening because the principal can't be in

038everybody's class what is happening to the teacher that is not reporting or recording these students for not being in class what action is being taken that's what I was asking asking that would be at school level that would be the administration because there's a ver verification reports run at the end each day where if they accidentally miss somebody they can go back and fix that and give it to the attendance clerk okay thank you all right any other questions all right thank you we also have to look at um student concerns as far as behavioral intervention and um mental health interventions and we have added a lot of interventions in these areas in the last few years and that would follow um with Miss Veron Davis's office and um Miss nikisha Keith afternoon I had

039quite a square scare too CU we lost internet connection and I was planning on using my phone so I'm good to go have to have a backup um good afternoon to this board I want to say a little over a year ago I came and requested an additional position to the office of students sport service looking at the state of our student we knew that we needed help with mental health and this board unanimously agreed to support that additional position and so I want to share with you where we are with providing those wraparound services and support I am pleased with the coordinators of Mental Health Services Miss Keith we now um she is a person of one we don't have a mental health team that is a goal of mine to eventually add to

040that department but collectively we have nine Community agencies that's working with our schools and so what that means is we have had to Outsource the work but it's where they come in and provide the support to our schools the schools are assigned to these agencies and then they provide the mental health supports inhouse primarily which our parents and our staff at the schools love because the students do not have to miss school and then you do have some parents who then will ask that their child receive Services um within the offices and so without mental health we are pleased that that progress with providing with having those um nine agencies we've had two more agencies that's just recently reached out to us and they are going through the vetting process at this moment and we

041would hope to continue to expand those Services as well our focus with mental health is collaboration um student connections and um providing strategies to support them um Miss Keefe meets with the team the team at each School quarterly to include representatives from um School counseling as well as mtss to look at the concerns of some of our students with regards to their state of mental health and some of our students have been hospitalized throughout the district and so we have to put together plans to help them re-enter the school environment um as we continue to expand these interventions and services um I want to just U personally put in a point of um Pride we have some programs that are unique to Sumpter one I will start with the flex program that's a program designed

042to address um substance abuse um for our secondary that's middle and high school eventually we would like to expand that to the elementary level but that Flex program is a is a collaboration and partnership with Sumpter Behavioral Health and they have teams that come into our schools to work with our school-based staff and students to provide those services to and that's also something that is also in place to help with our code of conduct conduct with students who um are caught with you know those different um cont um code of conduct violations we also unique to Sumpter we um were able to start strengthening our families that's a program that we have we started at the pilot site was Willow we had um eight families to participate with that program and we're going we now

043have expanded that it's a 7-week program after school in the afternoon that that program is also no charge to the district or families we have now expanded at to our three base schools so the B three base schools will have that for the for seven weeks and then we'll begin next year expanding it again we also have um trauma informed training and practices that we are using that we we have utilized to support our staff um and students but primarily right now we are focusing on the staff at alist Middle School um through that team there we are providing them some additional resources and support to that staff at that school and we will expand that as well I can move on to special services oh any questions regarding Mental Health yes M Davis um

044when you talk about the services being provided at schools are the actual teachers in the classroom are they receiving that PD to know how to handle students that may have mental health or Behavioral Health ISS we have had to address that as well with regards to um some of the professional development and that is one reason why she has been meeting with those building leaders quarterly to determine what their needs are and providing that and that's where that trauma informed piece does come in as well and is this work also being implemented at sassy as well or is this just it's District wide okay District wide all right any other questions okay thank you uh with um special services as we know special services has many moving parts to meet the needs of our special

045education students um one thing to always keep in mind when we focus when we look at that population of students they are identified as a student with a disability the disability will never go away we just continue to meet the students where they are and help them to grow and that is challenging but yet is something that is attainable and what I've done this year in particular I have challenged my staff what I've called boots on the ground and that's because I need them in the buildings working with teachers and as you see the number of visits what that mean is they're actually in the classroom helping the teachers and then they provide um feedback to the principles of what they may need to um some information that something may be going well or some

046may need some improvements and so with that not not only is that um process been effective with building relationship with the teachers but also with the students as well um I was just recently um at a school and um I was teasing Dr Maria newon Nan because when I walked in the classroom the student was sitting on her lap and I said are we working today or we playing today and she said we're doing both because this young man needed my help and he asked me for help when he was only um four years old but he asked her for help because he knows her so he's comfortable with her because he sees her constantly in that classroom so we hope to continue to do that we also um provided some training for structured um

047centers and ations in some of our special education classrooms because um one of the other things that I have advocated for especially at the elementary level our ratio per the state department is very low compared to what the requirement is and I have um continue to fight to keep those ratios low at the elementary level for that reason so that when you have classes with 10 or fewer they can really SP those students in the small ratios and they have assistance in the classroom to help with that and that was that is one of the reasons why I have um made sure that we have those ratio far below the the federal and state mandates and I do appreciate um the human resources department Dr oats and Dr Wright for allowing those positions to remain

048at a low level we teach them how to chunk the material to help the students with understanding the material when you anyone who's looked at a curriculum it's a lot there's a lot of Standards there's a lot of information and quite naturally some of our students would disability cannot absorb that amount of information so we ask them to break it down into chunks to help them to learn um and then we also uh for the past um two years we have support through a program that we're using called gold book but also it helps them to write IEP goals that are effective and meet the academic standards and then we show them how when we have our meetings yearly meetings and then we have um lead teacher meetings every month we share with them how

049to look at those goals to make sure they're addressing the needs of the students we continue to provide professional development but what's most important that that we put into place through my collaboration with um Dr McLoud our special education students are general education students first so they must have access to the general education curriculum that is a priority and with that being said they have been um providing them with those grade level content and resources to be able to make sure that if they're third grade student they will have those same materials in the special education classroom that any other third grade grader in the building has and so and then my coordinators are also following up on that and I've been given some good reports regarding that as well so I do thank Dr

050McLoud for including them in the in that in those ratios we continue to provide supplemental instructional curriculum resources and that varies based on the needs of those classes and students and some of those supplemental resources may look different depending on the student disabil AB ility we use assisted technology we've been fortunate to be able to attend assisted technology fairs for free we also have connections in Colombia where they will allow us to um they'll send us tools and different um devices for free we haven't had to pay because of those collaboration we have collaboration with many departments in Colombia that we go and we visit and they share with us how we can support our students with being a with their with their disability um and the last thing I want to say is collectively

051I've always said that um we cannot treat the department of special service on the island by themsel and we have had to really work to make sure that those that the students and the staff themselves are included in all aspects of what the school is doing and so with that being said when it comes back comes to professional development I have tasked Dr McLoud shaking her head task um the team the department with the special education teachers being included in all professional development first so they have gone through the letters training and all that the the other staff are doing they're included in that and that is definitely a step in the right direction as you know sometime growth is a slow process but as we continue to move forward and continue to keep these

052processes in place we'll continue to see the data show in itself that is paying off all right thank you any questions Mr chair I do have a few questions my first question is do we know if we have any parental groups within our district of uh students who are in our special services and intervention and support programs I'm not aware of Parental groups per se in Sumpter but I do know that we have state level groups that parents are probably a part of I can't say definitively but I'm pretty sure they are because it comes out from the state and it helps them you know Statewide with different resources and support okay would would you say that all of our programs within our district at the schools where they are are um equal no matter

053what from one school to the other would you say that the support is equal for the students they serve equal as far as supplies and resources or equal as far as supplies resources the assistance that they are getting um the uh the I guess the engagement and interaction with parents uh may look different but in terms of what we're doing with these students so it would depend on the program as to what the needs are so it could look different at schools like like you may have some schools that require a little bit more resources because of the nature of the students I mean for example um if you walk into the severe and profound classroom at Cherryville you'll see a ton of equipment you'll see a full-time nurse in that classroom you'll see um

054assisted technology but you won't see that necessarily in another school because the needs are different but as far as meeting their needs and getting them what they want we have been pretty solid with that um we have been able to fortunately I tapped when we had the Essa funds um thankfully working with Miss bearman we were able to utilize that funds to update some equipment like um changing stations and um we had to have um special uh seats for students to ride the bus and you know some of our equipment was old so we spent um a lot of money to help um UTI to help the teachers and staff with with those type of equipments um we've had to purchase some um additional equipment that help with um technology and so we we did

055utilize those funds effectively to do that to bring our departments up to speed we also put in a process in place a system where we can have um virtual meetings in a safe platform because with the nature of students with disability we have to make sure that that platform is safe because of confidentiality so that's been put in place as well so it just depends on the needs of the school the principls um and their staff they will they reach out to us often what their needs are because you know we have a presence in the school so they know us and they're comfortable with reaching out to us depending on their needs okay and then my last question is I know an area for a loan which is the area where I that I

056represent we have had two parents to pull their um students students that were in special services and intervention programs within our district from our school district and sent them to neighboring school districts are we tracking how often this is happening and the reasons these parents are pulling these students from our schools uh these are two that I know about I don't know if there are others but could we um kind of understand that a little bit better through additional reports that you can share with us moving forward yeah I have not had access to that type of data to know but I can certainly look to see where I can find that information but I have I don't have that information to be able to tell you thank you all right any other questions Mr

057chair yes um it's my understanding that the IEP is the is really the key to helping these students for example um let's say part in the ie P it says that you would have to read the material to the child at for State Testing not only in the classroom but for State Testing these kids are tested just like everybody El standards for ELA math science they're not watered down for these children are they you're correct they're they're the same standards and they're these are tested throughout all of the population and so the IEP you were talking about it to me that's key and you said you're you know making sure they get the training for this but I I wouldn't under I would not underplay that that is so important if they need help writing

058something if they need help uh have something read to them that's going to help and also with my team addressing that is this not a one in all each student is unique and you have to look at those unique needs of those students when you are creating that IEP and then you create a quality IEP and that's why we have another tool in place to help them for example you said you know your address writing and so what we have in place with one of the programs if you put that information in it will give you some suggestions of how to create that go to address you put in the present level where that student is on a and then they will give you some ideas of how to address that and also provide you

059with some activities to go along with that and that's why we have that in place just for the reason you said are are all of our schools equipped to help the hearing impaired the hearing impaired is a um small percentage of our population less than 1% and we do have um ASL interpreters for those students who need them and then we also have um devices that helps them with their hearing impairment in place for those students need it we use assisted technology that is the one group we tap into and we have a great relationship with that department at the state to help us provide those tools that they don't they don't charge us for it's it's been wonderful thank you all right thank you thank you okay and then all of that plays into

060the academic um success of the students but as far as specifically to academic interventions for Success we are working very hard to make sure that the mtss framework ensures that the students receive whatever is necessary um to support them being successful academically and we use datadriven research-based interventions and we're now looking at the interventions that we're using to determine which ones show the most student growth and success so that we can guide our teachers in using those and at which levels for example we have tier one interventions which would be things such as um tutoring whether it's before during after school um homework help um things like that but then when you start to have students that need a tier 2 level tier three level support we're building out our um interventions to ensure that

061the teachers know what to do and where to go for those so I gave you the example the first one we started really um building out was our elementary intervention pathway um when we made the shift with the new Ela standards and we had to adjust the mtss legislation we started to build with a team um what this would look like and what resources um were available so we have a flowchart and it's attached in your PowerPoint that shows the pathways there's a decision tree so if the student um is having difficulty with word recognition then you need to go to this diagnostic and this diagnostic is going to tell you to try this this strategy and um all of it is systematic it's a tiered approach in supporting student literacy and um this was

062our first year working on this we have a teacher group that comes back together monthly um Miss KS the elementary Ela social studies coordinator is fac facilitating that they triangulate the data they talk about what how it's working in the classrooms and um they look at the screeners the Diagnostics there are guiding questions with it and um cut score Guidance the grade level re um targets that they used so we're trying to ensure that the interventions are very targeted and they're aligned with the students specific literacy needs in the past we've seen that some times the um strategy that was being used wasn't necessarily the best strategy for that specific skill Gap so we're trying to um assist the teachers and making sure that they're using the best research-based strategy for the specific skill Gap

063we're also um targeting um at the school levels and one way to do that was was the coordinator of school Improvement and she's in those particular schools once to twice a month and she's going to share the overview of the turnaround plans um do just became doctor Ashton Jones if you'll join me to share some of the work that you've been doing with the turnaround plans uh Dr mlau we do have one question or um uh Dr Jones okay Dr McLoud when when you speak of the literacy interventions at the elementary level is there any collaboration with the Early Childhood Department um it just seems like we're a little behind the eightball if we're starting literacy intervention at the elementary level when once they get to the elementary level I mean they've some of them

064have been with us since prek and they're still not able to to to read by the time they get to first second or third grade so is there any collaboration that's in place between those that are dealing with the elementary and those that are dealing with the Early Childhood piece it starts with kindergarten okay but is there but we are pulling um with Miss Krill Ray we worked with the curriculum so that there's alignment and um they're right in the middle of their um letters training right now so that it will be fully aligned okay all of the elementary have done their letters training so now you're working backwards to the O well the state was a little backwards with it also okay all right right good evening chairman Reagan superintendent Dr Wright and board

065members today I'll be sharing information with you regarding our underperforming schools in Suter School District currently um the designated designated schools are as follows Bates Middle School Cherryville Elementary School Chestnut Oaks Middle School Crestwood High School Croswell Drive Elementary School Lakewood High School Lamar Elementary School Manchester Elementary School palla Springs Elementary School rafon Creek Elementary School r Davis Preparatory Academy the elementary Side suer High School and Willow Drive Elementary School according to the cyrina Department of Education an underperforming school is defined as a school receiving and overall school report car rating of below average or unsatisfactory currently there are 13 schools in Suter School District that have been identified as underperforming based on the overall School SCH report card rating from last year which was the 2324 school year all underperforming schools have an overall

066score um School Report carard rating of unsatisfactory or below average underperforming designations are determined on an annual basis and there is no funding provided by the South Carolina Department of Education that is attached to this designation there are five overall rating descriptors um excellent good average below average and unsatisfactory so I'll just read the below average and unsatisfactory description below average schools um have school performance that is in Jeopardy of not meeting the criteria to ensure all students meet the school Pro profile over a South Carolina graduate unsatisfactory schools um have school performance that fails to meet the criteria to ensure all students meet the profile of the South Carolina graduate on the next slide um I just provided you with the overall rating scale because it does vary from elementary middle and high school

067so the numbers don't look the same for excellent good average below average and unsatisfactory for each school I'm just going to go over uh what their actual report card rating is and um like Dr Wright mentioned we have some schools that were very very close um to not being on this list um so Croswell Drive Elementary their report car rating was a 41 which was one point off Lamy Elementary their overall report car rating was a 38 which was three points off Manchester Elementary had an overall report car rating of 41 which was one point off picalla Springs Elementary had an overall report car rating of 36 which was five points off rafon Creek Elementary School had an overall rating of 37 which was four points off Ari Davis College Preparatory Academy again the Elementary

068side had an overall rating of 35 which was six points off Willow Drive Elementary had an overall rating of 38 which was 3 points off and again those were the below average schools um the next four below average schools were Chestnut Oaks Middle School which had a report C rating of 34 which was two points off Crestwood High School had an overall report C rating of 49 which was two points off Lakewood um High School had an overall rating of of 41 which was 10 points off and Suter High School had an overall report card rating of 45 which was 6 points off so those are all of the below average schools um and then we have two schools that um scored unsatisfactory so in order for them to get out of the below average

069or unsatisfactory rating um Bates Middle School um had an overall report card rating of 28 um which was one point off but they would have needed an addition 10 points to get off alog together Cherryville had a report card rating of 31 which was three points off but they would have needed a total of 13 points to get off the unsatisfactory rating so District level support um I know the first time we met I shared a little bit about what I did but that was with a different um a different category so with the underperforming schools um um I initially I met with each principal to discuss what it means to be an under performing school I collaborated collaborated with the principles to develop a schoolwide turnaround plan based on the South Carolina Department of

070Education template and I created a folder that you all should have um access to all of those plans I collaborated with principles to develop a presentation to share with Community stakeholders and parents that inform the public about the underperforming designation turnaround plan and welcome feedback from stakeholders so every principal um did this all 13 principles did this in November I also collaborated with principles and their leadership team to develop a data template to use to track student progress for all students who take SE ready or eoc's so again um every one of these 13 schools I have a copy of a data template that we update every month regarding their progress and then ongoing I meet with principles and their leadership team monthly to review the three goals within their plan review action steps review

071data make revision visions and determine next steps for school Improvement um each school also shared the academic interventions that they provided um I just want to put in a caveat that every one of these principles worked very very hard um to get out of this status and they don't take this lightly neither do their stakeholders um so I'm going to flip through those and if you have any questions are wonderful principles are here as well to answer any questions that you may have about their interventions [Applause] so I'll give you two minutes to [Laughter] look and you will note that some of these are um are repeated because they're districtwide interventions and some are specific to the schools the schools are given um some of time as far as um some of the programs they

072use we have some that are Avid schools some that are um Sr B schools some that are Leader in Me schools they have those are all um Improvement um platforms and based on what they feel their school needs are they get to choose those and use those within their um within their school so you will see some things and they have different subgroups so sometimes you'll see some specific targeting to a particular subgroup all right any questions any questions yes Dr Reagan my question is you mentioned at the in uh some of the Improvement platforms that the schools are using they have the autonomy to select and I know that not all schools are the same and instruction in the schools may even look different at any given time but um are you finding with

073any one of the programs or the other that we're having greater success with our students and the Improvement that they are exhibiting um so that's one thing that Dr McLoud and I have discussed um I've noticed that uh I think there's too much autonomy um in the programs that we have because it's difficult to hone in on what's actually being effective and what's not um because it's difficult for for me to track 13 schools to see what's being effective when all 13 schools are using different items so like I said that's something we've discussed because we also have a very transient population and our goal should be that our students are successful and they see the same curriculum the same interventions no matter where they go and something school district so that is something that

074we're working on um do do you find where these schools that we've identified as um below average or unsatisfactory do you find where these these schools have more of a population of uncertified teachers in their buildings yes absolutely okay I want to say that was mentioned the last time you came before this body as well so I guess my question is what are we doing to make sure that we're addressing that situation because I think the ultimate goal is to remove these student I mean schools off of this list so that we become better um so I mean if you're prepared to answer it that's fine but um I guess that's a a very very high concern to mine um yeah so I I I really want to know you know what what we're doing

075yes ma'am so just it's a concern of mine as well because uh those we have instructional coaches um and other positions within the building that are being pulled because all of the leaders School leaders in this building um instruction is the first priority they tier one instruction so a lot of their um staff are going in classrooms and teaching as they should because we're still teachers first at the end of the day um and that's where tier one we have to hit that but for our students who need that tier two or tier three interventions um they might be missing out on that because they're being pulled in different directions so I will get an answer for you on that certainly okay yes I've heard with each one of my colleagues on here at the

076board have have said about these underperforming schools in our district and what I'm and I heard you say it a little bit as well that there's not really a districtwide a district uh plan being pushed down from the district to the school level what is and that you're working on it what is the timeline on the development or implementation of that districtwide plan to include things like the uncertified teachers in those buildings as well so from the academic um standpoint actually uh I was supposed to meet with the um academics team on March 5th because it is a it's a collective effort for everybody to put in their expertise on what programs they think are best practices and what is working well unfortunately I have a state department meeting um for CSI schools and the

077three CSI principles will be there for that but the timeline is to have that implemented before the school year is out so we can push it out this summer to school leaders what that expectation is all right any other questions um Mr chair yes um we we do have and I don't know how many of our uh multinational teachers are in these schools but I would assume that somehow we're working with them because they may not they may not be accustomed to the way you know we have standards and we it's very different for them what are we doing for the multinational teachers and I think we have over a hundred well we've restructured the coordinate the content coordinators at the district level to they are working with them um the department of um Human

078Resources is also Contracting with someone to work with them um we are working with the instructional coaches to also work in the classrooms with them um we do have um Universal curriculum in all of our schools at some of the different programmatic um supplemental resources that are not consistent at the schools right now that we are working on because we want to use um the most effective research-based um strategies and resources in the classrooms and you know I'm hearing you and I I believe that's the right right direction but we're going to be tested in April MH this is almost March so is there an urgency here I mean I mean are we doing this as as in like tomorrow you know I want our school to S our district to succeed but if I

079were in that classroom I mean I'd be I think I'd be horar every night from trying to to make things pop and happen in it do we have that sense of urgency because they're going to be tested in just a month or so and there's no answer that's not my area of expertise but I surely don't mind working with anyone in Su School District to make that happen yeah and didn't we hire don't we have somebody else that we've recently hired who's working with these schools also is it not yet not yet okay thanks Mr chair um interestingly enough you mentioned the instructional coaches because that was one of the first things that came to mind for me when we were uh talking through this how many instructional coaches and I I imagine it would

080vary from school to school do we have in our schools do we have at least one instructional coach at each school and how many do we have in our district we do not have one at each school we have one at every Title One school we have reading coaches at every Elementary School we have um assistant principal for curriculum and instruction at H high school but they do carry other duties okay thank you ju just for clarification and and we're going to move along um there is no instructional coach in every in each of those schools that we named as below average we so so do we have a academic coach in each of these schools that we're talking about on this list the high schools have an assistant principal that carries curriculum and instruction

081duties in addition to other duties do we see where that's effective and and I guess a question because I mean administrative duties that they have to do and then you have the you know curriculum instruction duties they have to push into yeah yeah administrative discipline duties so has that been effective um in in in past years I would find it difficult yeah yeah as accountability gets heavier and heavier on the schools yeah yeah yeah I I I would find it difficult as well yeah okay all right board members any other questions at this time all right thank you thank you so very much for the presentation and everybody who uh Grace uh this table tonight thank you for the information and certainly um I see uh a lot of movement back there so it look

082like the principal's work is done and certainly we thank you all for being here tonight and taking time out of your schedule thank you mi Mr chair if I may take take a point of privilege in transition to talk about something very briefly um because all of us are a part of this um on yesterday um I had the privilege of going to uh an impact conference um sponsored by cognia and our school district received the 2025 Innovation and impact award so a little bit about that the the impact the cognia Innovation and impact award is a recognition given by the education accreditation Association cognia to schools or school districts that demonstrate exceptional innovation in their practices leading to significant positive impacts on student learning and The Wider community so uh Mr chair m of

083the board I wanted to um bring actually the the trophy uh that we received on yesterday here tonight for view uh for each of you to view um and congratulations to our staff because certainly it was our people working together collectively that helped us earn this award Dr yes Dr Wright could you just elaborate for those of us that don't know exactly what work goes into getting the cogni recognition yes yes sir so it is uh first of all it is our accreditation process in the state of South Carolina that happens every 5 years so uh it is basically an opportunity for um an outside eye if you will to come in and evaluate and look at our district and um see how well we're doing um they go anywhere that they please uh they

084look at anything that they please and it is a uh very tedious and uh lengthy process to prepare um as well as present data and findings and so forth while they are here um and for the district to receive this award award simply means that we did it at an excellent level um there there some ratings that come out uh we scored very high and uh cognia sees uh many many school districts during the course of a year um and we were the only School District uh that was recognized yesterday um in a two-state area uh with this award so uh that certainly uh means that we're getting some things right as we continue to improve go ahead if we're being recognized for the work that we're being done by the accreditation uh firm or

085Association if you will are there things that we did to get this recognition that we should be implementing on a day-to-day basis in this District because I mean we've set through half of the superintendent's report and in each one of those reports there's been major room for improvement and so when we're looking at we're being recognized for doing great work but then when we get in the weeds and look at things it's like we're not doing as well as we should be so I'm trying to understand the correlation between the work that was done to receive the recognition in the work that we're doing that we're not seeing the outcomes in the presentation that we received tonight so so they review um the work that you have done and they make suggestions for improvement and

086most districts uh take that information to to build and and make themselves better and uh that report has been shared but we can reshare it uh with the board in terms of uh what was actually found and what what they say we did well and what we need to improve on thank you all right all righty at this time Mr chair members of the board we're ready for item 4.3 Transportation update uh that will be Mr Samuel Myers Mr Marlon danler good evening everyone good evening everyone we do thank you for the opportunity to allow us to come and provide a brief update about our Transportation uh Department um leading into that as we U move forward and we're looking at some accolades would like to congratulate Mr Marlon danler for his appointment to the

087state steering committee for transportation he was elected maybe a couple of weeks ago uh we attended a meeting and after the meeting they U made some selections and he was selected to that steering committee so hats off to him for the the the way that he's for the various ways that he's tried to find uh dig into the trends and Innovations of the things that are happening around the state and and with some of the things that uh some of the contacts he's made across the country so we're going to ask him to give us um the updates on Transportation St yes sir so first of Allan taking over here at Su school district there are some core things that has to happen in any department and one of the core things that we needed

088here was a vision and a mission statement for this department the vision of su School District transportation department is to pursue excellence in transporting students safely provide our opportunities for professional growth for all the team members and improve community relations our mission is to provide safe and reliable and effective school bus transportation that supports the educational development of every student we aim to create a positive and supportive Transportation experience that enhances the overall educational journey of every student um and so for our 20 24 25 theme we we we didn't have any vision and one of some of the things that I saw that we were missing uh prompted me with this um theme for the 2425 school year is uh Ace accountability consistency and efficiency um I challenged my team that uh we needed

089to change the face of how we look in the community um the community was not quite happy with transportation and I told them that that the way that we can change that is we have to start from within and so that's where Ace came from accountability we have to be accountable for everything that we do we have to be consistent in everything that we do and we definitely have to have efficiency in what we do and so that's what I've challenged my team with and that's what we have been working on uh since I've been here um efficiency and growth there can't be growth without change Sammy D Simmons that's one of the things that I challenge them with I know that everybody's been here for a long time and they didn't want to change

090want to do things a little bit different but in transportation is always a different way to do things but achieve the same goal and so some things that we needed to do to upgrade some things and some people we need to move around and we need to do some things a little bit different in order to achieve the goal that we need to achieve when we look at our transportation updates when I started here bus monitor their pay was $859 an hour that was unacceptable to me so I put together a proposal uh presented it to the board at that time uh to get their my pay raise up to $1 an hour which and we're still with the surrounding districts we're still not where we need to be but it's better than $859 an

091hour uh bus cameras the first summer last summer were up were repaired there were a lot of cameras that weren't working uh I went through so many schools telling me that they needed videos and cameras weren't working so we worked to get the cameras updated well get them repaired but uh the systems were four or five years old so as they were up were repaired you know when technology four or five years old is old and so they go right back down again so we're it's an ongoing process with getting those cameras repaired over and over again however uh later in my presentation there are future plans to upgrade but there are some other things that need to happen before we can get there okay um two-way radios arriving here there were some buses I

092think about 10 buses that did not have two-way radios um for me that was a problem because there was no way to communicate with the driver so you know what they do they went to cell phones so I got tired of getting calls with drivers on the cell phones while they're driving the buses so we had to make some changes and we got those buses uh added radios added to those buses and now we're moving to a system as to where we communicate with bus drivers we need to communicate by 2-way radio Okay um we have received one of our two new activity buses that were ordered um the second one should be here maybe another month hopefully pretty soon that one will be here um upon coming here uh bus drivers were uh payroll

093was still being done on paper that was a problem for me um so uh now all bus drivers are being tracked payroll in front line with that the district provides um this way this that brings that efficiency um we're consistent with what we doing and is also bringing accountability um we got to make sure that everybody is doing what they're supposed to do and being accountable and uh so we're making sure that we stay consistent because we want to make sure that we are doing what's best for the district and for our children um one of the other things that I found is that we didn't have any communication with the parents as a Transportation uh department so uh we introduced my ride K12 which is a parent app that we've launched already we have

094been piling that piling that with uh picala Springs and uh it's been going very well and uh we're getting ready to move now to uh Manchester and uh Cherryville the reason has taken so long to get to this point to to launch it is because there was a lot of things that had to happen behind the scenes and so uh once those things happened behind the scenes we were able to be in a more comfortable place as to where we could launch the app and it be accurate because the routes that we have had to be accurate before we could even launch the app if we didn't do that piece then it wouldn't even it wouldn't be wouldn't make sense to launch the app so that's what we've been working on for the past few

095months making sure that the routes were ACC as accurate as possible um when you're still talking about communication we will be able to communicate with parents uh we'll be able to send a message that say if route 301 was going to be delayed we'll be able the parents that actually download the app we will be able to communicate with that particular bus route and say hey bus 301 is going to be running 10 minutes late today d d any type of messages that we need to send we'll be able to do that and still also alert the schools and allow the schools to be able to send through their platforms as well um communication was a big thing and uh I think that uh that cuts down on the phone calls uh when the parents

096wants to know where there where their students are um and so we're being able by us being able to do this this will help everybody in the community be able to feel safer about their students as they're traveling on the buses um contining with communication uh we revamped the Facebook page for uh Transportation um it's called bus transportation sub to school district um we have been using this platform for uh informing families about late buses I think we started out with zero people and I think now we've got about 97 followers and I think that was pretty good to say we started off with nothing so we're up to 97 followers we have some people that comment um it's it's been becoming a good platform so if I know that there's a late bus I

097can communicate that I know everybody's not on Facebook but something's better than nothing um and going back to the my ride K2 12 app If a driver calls out at 4 5:00 in the morning a school can't notify parents that's where this this app comes in um you can have it set up to where you can send an alert to your phone if if a message comes through it alert the parent hey look your bus is going to be running 10 minutes later this morning now my goal for this app I I'm working to make sure that we get this app out to the entire District by the end of the school year but there are some things that has to take place before we can do that each School has to make sure that

098the students addresses are accurate in power school because this app is going to feed off of Pate school so if a student has a PO box or something like that it's not going to work so that's what we have charged the school picala Miss Michelle McBride and her team did a awesome job they dug they they dug in and they went ahead and made sure that they had all of the addresses correct they they utilize the teachers to help with that process it is some work it is some ground that has to be done but the end result will be cut down on phone calls parents to be able to trct their kids okay um hopefully in the future we'll be able to enhance that a little bit more as we move on to updates

099um we've had to move some Personnel around to fit the needs of the department um coming in and looking at what we had and who was where I was able to look at the strengths and the weaknesses of of personnel and so with what we had going on with like activities uh that department has grown tremendously I mean we've had like Friday this past Friday we had 32 trips in one day and that's including school bus get students back for the school so we had to get some help I had to get some help down there so I ended up having to shift some people around and make it to where it's more conducive for the Department um are we where we need to be support staff no but that's why I'm cross trining everybody

100to make sure that we can fill in whenever someone is out because for me one person doing something doesn't work for me everybody needs to be able to do the job whether that person is not here or or they're on vacation or whatever I even step in and do the work when my first week here the activity coordinator she went out sick I had to do the job didn't know anything about it but we made it work um that's that's what you do as a leader um and so that's what I charge my team to do everybody knows a little something about everything um we've added two new trainers driver trainers to our our department um our training process is a little bit challenging um it's a little bit lengthy um but I had to

101remind myself that you can't rush training when you're dealing with our president precious babies we got to make sure whatever drivers we put on the road are qualified and and they are able to take care of our children so I've haded two driver trainers to try to um make that process a little bit smoother um it's a lengthy process um and it that it all depends on the the applicant some things that they can control and some things that we can control and the things that we can't control as a district sometimes it gets Mis miscues that's put out there that we're not doing our part but then at the same time we have challenges where we have applicants they can't pass the test um they can't pass the permit test um there's a 4-day

102class that they have to take with the state department some of them can't pass that so there's a lot of challenges when it comes to the training department so I've had to revamp some things in the training department I've actually worked with it uh they're getting me five iPads so that I can have in-house classes to help that with when they do that 4day class with the state department if they have any questions we'll be right there to help them inhouse because it's normally done online but I'd rather have them with me so that I can help them be successful if they have any questions on how to get to the test how to do this we're there to help them versus them missing the class and have to start all over again so it's

103a lengthy process um the driver trainers everybody in my training department right now they do other jobs and their other jobs come first so training is always second so scheduling training uh with people is kind of hard when you have other things going on as well so it's something that we're still a work in progress um as we continue to move forward uh we're going to try to streamline that process a little bit more so that we can have a better success rate um new activity transportation software has been purchased um reason for that is the couple of reasons one is the software that we have for activity trips that run that that system is outdated that's number one number two it's so outdated is going away in June so I had to find some

104new activity trip software to fit the needs of the district and now we'll be moving to more of a process like with procurement all approvals now will be electronic come moving forward once we get this implemented um of course this is going to come with a lot of challenges uh we're going to have to have some data a lot of data is going to have to be swapped over um training for my staff and then we'll have to train all of the bookkeepers or whoever does trips a athletic directors whoever does trips for uh the um for their schools we have to train them and I got to have all this done by June 1 so um got some big projects coming up and so that was one of the ones that was very very

105important because when the old system goes out we won't have anything and so that won't be good with the amount of trips we run we run just as many trips during the summer as we do during the school year we run buses pretty much 7 days a week so we're very busy in that department as it continues to grow we're going to continue to do what we need to do to support that department um routing I want to talk a little bit about routing that has been a big issue since I've came on board Dr Wright has challenged me to uh get us some more efficiency with our routing well our routing system that we have that's provided by the state I was not a fan of it when I came here um to me

106it doesn't do what I feel like we what works for the district but because it's state buses they providing software we kind of got to go with it so what I had to do is I had to look at where we were I came in we had about 7,000 students that were not um accounted for in the system um so I had to figure out why because nobody could tell me why um so I found out that my staff was not as fluent with the system as I thought they would be so uh I had to work with the software company to get my folks retrained and then it worked out because I was able to get trained on it as well and then we were able to eliminate a lot of the problems after

107the 14 sessions of training with the software company I then brought in the state department to do additional training because I didn't feel like we still were where we needed to be after the 14 sessions with the software company uh so the state department came in helped us out and we got those 7,000 students down the 1500 so that was a big accomplishment I felt like and uh we're in a better position with the state Department because the state department uses this system to track how we move they track how every bus moves they track every bus stop we have if a bus goes off Route they can see it they can see everything that I can see and so it is important that we do what we're supposed to do because at the end

108of the day we're going to be charged for every out ofout mile by the state of South Carolina and so for me it has been a charge to make sure that we get these routes accurate as possible um so that's why I had to have my staff retrained because I need everybody to know what they're doing when we're doing it and I'm even cross training next week I've even got my secretaries they're going to be going to through a training session because I need all hands on deck when it comes down to this routing system um future plans of course first and foremost is hiring drivers and support staff um we always talk about the lack of drivers but we also have a lack of support staff to support drivers if I got 25 drivers

109tomorrow we catch we catch have a hard time trying to support that with the staff that we have but we're doing the best that we can that's why I've got a lot of people cross training they're working a lot of hours they're doing a lot of extra um working out of their comfort zones but it's what we got to do if we want to be successful um we T talked about routing one of the things that I have uh been working with Dr Wright and Mr Myers on is I'm bringing in a consultant company to do a routing analysis for the entire District what this company will do they will come in they will look at what we have look at all of our data and they will build what it should look like beside

110what we already have in the system in our routing system the reason for this is from my understanding from my team the that routes have not been audited since consolidation in 2011 there's been a lot of growth in Su since 2011 and there's a lot of buses that are crossing each other a lot of buses that are that are in the same areas and it just doesn't make sense to me so I'm bringing in the professionals to come in because it's too massive the way how it is now and what's been happening is the routes have been rolled over year after year but there has been no true audit so once they come in and do this audit they'll be able to better prepare us so when we start making our plans for the the

11125 26 school year we can be more efficient over the summer the summer when we set up our routes we'll be able to set them up according to what is accurate versus trying to find a needle and ha stack as I look at it um again we talked about training department creating my training department um I'm pretty much almost there with what I need but we're going to keep pushing on that um we do have some building concerns we have some upgrades that we're going to be trying to do to with furniture and flooring um we have carpent and some of the offices that have been there since the buildings were built um so we have some some very need some big needs that we need there um looking at trying to get a new

112building for Ferman new bus office for Ferman um a building for Crestwood uh bus lot um and also uh we're going to continue to try to uh order activity buses to on that replacement cycle that I spoke about at the last ad hoc committee meeting of four per year we hadn't bought a bus since 2014 and we are in need of of upgrading and uh and and growing the fleet because there's a the thing of it is that when we grow the fleet that is revenue for the district every time we use a state bus for an activity trip we have to pay the state Department it's not free so giving that money to the state I'd rather keep that money in house so that's why it's more important for us to upgrade our activity

113bus fleet because the buses will pay for themselves um it's it's a it's a one of those things that I I thought was crazy but we have to pay the state department so upgrading our Fleet growing our Fleet will be most beneficial for the district as a whole um alternative transportation we have some very unique situations here in the district when it comes to Transportation um we are stretch thin as it is we're doing our best to make sure that we get our students back and forth home school and we have special needs Transportation issues so like if you have a student that lives in one area they may move to another area but the services they need may be all the way across the district in another Zone that throws everything out of whack

114so what I have already done I've consulted with a few alternative contractors that will be able to come in and handle the special need those special type situations to be able to transport you know those kids like on a I think it most of them it's like a week notice we give them a week notice they have trained professionals background checks the whole nine yards to be able to handle uh whatever needs we may have um that may be outside of Transportation I mean out of bus transportation there may be a van or whatever they may need for a small Transportation like if that student needs that to help if even it's a wheelchair they'll still be able to accommodate those needs um that's where the industry is going in transportation um everybody needs help

115and the issues that we have with with drivers this is not a su School District thing this is a thing across the United States and there's a lot of districts are having the same issues and uh Charleston South Carolina their their District they are that's what they use alternative transportation um Maran South Carolina they use alternative transportation and also Florence 1 those guys I've been working very closely with and uh they've been helping me to navigate through that piece of that alternative transportation um the companies that they've given me come highly recommended and uh we're actually in negotiations now with them trying to figure out which one we want to use to help accommodate the special needs that we have here in Su um upgrading cameras is one of the things that I would like

116to do um get us to the point to where we're not having to pull hard drives off the bus to get uh to get a camera footage if a principal calls us I like to be able to be able to pull it up on my computer right there at that moment go ahead and cut whatever feed they need and send it to them right now we can't do that we don't have that capability um so my goal is to upgrade the cameras to where we can have it going to a cloud the video go to a cloud and then we'll be able to you know get whatever footage we need send it to that principal the same day versus having to wait till the next day because if something happens in the afternoon we got

117to wait for the bus to come back in pull the hard drive off the bus then we got to sit there and watch the whole video until we find what we're looking for then we cut out the part that they need and by the time the school gets it is the next day some things need to be handled the same day um so that's a goal um it's going to be an expensive goal because of the number of buses we have in our Fleet um but I'm more than sure that we'll be able to work it out as to where we can upgrade those cameras to where it'll be more efficient and more uh consistent for something school district um one of the other things that I want to put in effect is a uh

118dress code for the drivers um uniform Mr Myers has uh we've worked to get some uniform shirts uh there should be coming I don't know exactly when he going to uh answer to that but have everybody uh uniformed uh looking the same uh we're the same team and we at the same goals we need to be looking the same we need to be dressed appropriately um so uh when you go to other districts that's what I see you know I I want I don't want something to be left out I want to be a part of that as well being uniformed as as one team uh Personnel wise Staffing I need to hire two dis dispatchers um I'm hoping that I'll be able to get that in my budget um for the new year this

119dispatchers are very very important um they will be the ones that will be the central nervous system controlling uh what information is related to drivers they'll be able to do other other duties such as helping with the routing uh be there the first thing in the morning to open up last one to close at the end of the day um it's just a lot of different variables um dispatches are very essential to Transportation you know you got that's your central nervous system and we don't have that here and so you got secretaries that are trying to do a dispatch's job but they're trying to answer the phones they're trying to take care of people when they come in and they're still trying to answer the radios and you got drivers calling needing help um supervisors

120if they're not on the bus then they're trying to help but it just makes things flow so much easier when you have a dispatcher to come in and be able to run that particular situation um one of the other things that I would like to do is I would like to try to implement in the future a sign on bonus for new hires uh and looking at a retention bonus um when I look at all the other districts around us they're either doing one or the other and that makes it hard for us to compete um they they're doing it they're not doing a sign on bonus they're doing a retention bonus you know that's that's that's the going thing now around the around the uh around South Carolina and uh different other districts and

121different other states um that's something I'd like for us to look at and I understand that you know we have to be mindful of spending but we still need people and I'm with the drivers that I'm getting I've had over 100 applications since I've been here and I've been only able to hire seven people that's a lot that's not a lot that's a lot of applications and people get lost in the process either they when they get in in they find out it's harder than what they what what they thought it was um some of them come in and they don't want to work for the money they move on I've lost drivers to other districts um that's where we are um we need to do something to the ones that we have to keep

122them so they won't look at going somewh anywhere else um I try to do the best I can since I've been here to do some things to help them out uh lunches dinners different things like that to show their appreciation but you know when it comes down to it you know they want some money so um we got to try to look at that aspect um one of the last things that I was trying to do for this school term but it doesn't seem like it's going to work out because it's a very large project I want to do pre-registration for bus transportation so what that means is um the previous school year uh parents that would need bus transportation will have a set up in PR school where they will have to register their

123student for bus transportation and the reason for that is during the summer this is when we calculate do our routes to get prepared for the new school year we can't prepare my first summer here and I'm my my question was how do you know who's riding the bus how do you know who's not riding the bus we're going to stops that we may not even need to go to but there's no accurate way of knowing anything if we don't have that data so that's going to be key uh that's going to be a major project that I'm going to push for for 25 26 to get that going so that we can start even with the new parents when they come in they register their kids for school they'll be able to go online and

124be able to register this student for bus transportation it to come straight to us and then we'll be able to get that child on the route and Comm get that communication to that parent what route that student needs to be on um it's just moving us into a new era of trying to do things that easier way versus you know running around like a chicken with a head cut off so that's kind of how I felt this summer you know trying to figure out who what when where and why and you just keep moving until people call and complain and that's not the way to do business that's not the way to to to uh operate we should be a little bit more efficient in what we're doing so that's it for my future plans

125um any questions all right any questions at this time Mr chair Mr Dan thank you for for that presentation I do have a a couple of questions yes sir and Dr right you may have to chime in on this as well when you I've seen in here where you talk about future plans for the new building for Ferman uh building for the Crestwood bus lot I know some time ago there was conversations is about moving transportation to to the delain property and before anybody say anything I know someone's going to say it's not enough space or it's not feasible so what is the plan for a centralized location but before you say it's not feasible to move to the Delan property it will be inaccurate for anybody to say the Delane is not a feasible

126location and we're talking about bus drivers need we're talking about a need for compensation for for drivers and support staff we be better served if we had a centralized location for our transportation department where we could house all transportation workers where Mr Danel and his team could have a training department their training department could utilize the space at the Delane Center to conduct those trainings the money money that will be spent on building a new building for firm and building a building for Crestwood could be used to go towards compensation when we talk about upgrading bus cameras that's money that could be used for those those type of of Necessities that the transportation department needs so what is the district's plan to address a centralized Bus location well honestly um Mr Austin I I thought

127the same thing when I first got here but when I looked at the Dynamics of the district and the distances that drivers would have to travel if you put bus at Delane that driver is going to have to leave their house come to Delan pick up that bus then they're going to have to go down to Ari Davis area down to St John to pick up those students and you're talking for them to get down there at a at a feasible time to pick them up they're going to probably have to be leaving the the the bus lot at 5:00 in the morning that's going to put more on the driver we're not helping the driver at that point we're putting more in a driver more stress and they're having to drive all the way

128out there and then you got to think about those babies that's got to ride all the way back from out there then in the afternoon you got to do the same thing then you look at the Pinewood are area you know you you the thing that we try to do we try not to put that much stress on the drivers most of the drivers they come in about 5:30 in the morning anyway they come in about 5:30 in the morning the way we got it set up now the buses that are like the St John area mazille area that that area Crestwood usually handles that area Hillcrest is strategically place to take care of rbert and all of that stuff on that side of town and then you got the firman bus lot that takes

129care of all the Pinewood and all that stuff so it logically yes putting them in a centralized location that would be the thing to do but then you got to look at the geographics of where our students live and that's kind of that's where the challenge came in so I had to rethink my thoughts on that as well so do as it currently stands with Personnel are Personnel stationed at a location that's close to their primary residence most of the time yes and so what we've had to do what I've had to do since I've been here I've been having to put new drivers where the need is okay the biggest need right now is something to high that that area because you got to think about it before consolidation something to high bus lot

130was a school district by itself okay and so when you got the other two area offices that was the rule District 2 so we need way more drivers for the inner city routes because we're having to have one one Route One the school has two two routes we got to have one bus one bus take that route drop them off and come back and get the other one that's what Lamar was facing okay then we had situations at at chest Oaks where we were having pretty much the same thing eonia we were able to work that situation out because we had a couple of drivers to come back off of retirement that were able to come in and help us out to where we can get eida kids picked up earlier so once we do

131the route analysis I don't want to put a Band-Aid on the situation I want to get to the root of the problem and the routing analysis that is what's going to get us to the root of the problem I want to fix it we may not need as many drivers as we think we may need more drivers we don't know we can't accurately say what we need we can't because of the routing is not accurate so so what are we saying now because I I believe the the bigger issue at this point is that the kids are still getting the school late MH yes they they are and I I we are getting them to school late but here's the thing we still not gaining anything when we hire drivers because I can give tell

132you right off off the bat we had right now we've got 50 full-time drivers five part-time drivers that barely drive 12 hourly drivers and if it wasn't for the coaches we've got 12 coaches that drive to help us drive if it wasn't for them we wouldn't even make it we've got 14 subd drivers that bar some of them barely drive and in this one year like I told you I've hired seven new drivers I had three retirees to come back but they're only here temporarily because once they hit that 10 ,000 Mark they got to go home they can't work no more so we're going to lose them in the middle of the year so then we got to compensate for that all right then we had I had one driver to retire five to

133resign and two were terminated so the numbers are not adding up for us to be able to change the Dynamics of what we have we we we're late and the only thing that's going to change that is two things do the routing analysis get a true accurate look where we are and hire more drivers those are the two things that are going to fix where we are and and the bigger picture is the bigger scope is the routes are not accurate that has to be fixed and any time that you're fixing a problem it's not going to look pretty while you're going through the process of fixing it that's where we are yeah yeah um you you've been here over what about a year now next month next week will be yeah you you've been

134here a year yes sir um and some of those things you mentioned in your presentation you discovered those things kind of early oh yes sir in your arrival here in that position yes sir how often have you been meeting and who have you been meeting with to make sure that these things are discussed on The Daily almost that's what it sound because we still late coming to school you know buses are still late right you know the area 3 area still don't have a building mhm M so are are you all meeting on a constant basis about this I heard you said a consultant yes for rout a route analysis or something like that yes to do a rout analysis for the entire District so you all are meeting about that yes sir Mr Myers

135and myself we and Mr Dr wght we've all met we've all agreement that that needs to happen and so right now the process we are with that is I'm working with procurement to make sure that we do things the right way as far as getting that company to come and do that routing analysis for us right and and in in that meeting in that discussion are you all looking at the route analysis versus realignment realignment has not come up my my my goal is routing analysis and that's what I've been discussing how we need to make sure the routes are correct accurate now when you talk about the the the resoning um that situation I have not that has not been on my radar sir thank you thank you all right it okay yes sir

136uh Mr dancer just a followup so if it's not feasible to move all of transportation to a centralized location would it not be feasible to have you stationed at a central location with a training department and your training staff there at a location so how we're set up right now um my TR all the training is done at sup High office because it has that's where the pad is for the CDL training so we have a CDL tester um that has been certified by the federal government that he can test drivers instead of we sending drivers to the DMV he does everything right there our pad is there at the uh suire office and that's where we do all of our training for everybody that's a centralized location for the training um so they do

137everything there um and it works out pretty good because of the simple fact that um the buses are always there they're available um and it's easier for people to find to go to the sup High office they go there boom get everything done and that's how we got you're not housed there no I'm not housed there I'm housed at Hill Crest okay and and just to follow one last thing I promise I'll be done yes sir when you talk about doing this this routing audit yes and a consultant doing this work MH I don't see how routes will change without realignment one example of that is the students that live near Chestnut Oaks if they're a high school student they're Zone to go to something to high so how will a route analysis or a

138route audit change the fact that this child is going literally across town where they could be five minutes away from their their High School how the routing analysis will help us is easy um we would be able to know exactly what we need uh like I told you earlier we have buses that are in the same area that doesn't make sense to me I I ride when I come to work every morning I see three buses on the same road that doesn't make sense I do too yeah that doesn't make sense to me and so in order for us to get an accurate view of how many drivers we actually need again we may not need a lot more drivers but in my professionalism in my experiences you have to know what you're dealing with

139from the ground before you can start throwing other things at it you got to figure out what the problem is you got to get to the root of the problem we can put a Band-Aid on it we can do whatever but if you don't get in any business in any type of organization if you don't get to the root of your problem you're not really accurately going to be able to fix your issue is always still going to be there so that's my goal my goal is to fix it that's what what I was brought here to do and so the way that I'm plan to do it is if I get this routing analysis it'll take the pressure off if I don't need as many drivers now if you want to talk about resoning

140that'll be a question for Dr Wright all right any other questions yeah I have a question so my from my understanding we have over aund and something staff with cdl's that's in this District but not everybody is driving and my thing is if they're sitting in the office and they have a CDL at this point because of these children constantly being late every day it should be all hands on deck that means those folks that's sitting in that office in that bus office should be on a bus if they can drive CDL and they don't have any medical issues they should be on the bus what can we do to get those folks on the bus cuz that will help with some of these issues now so I have two supervisors that one supervisor I

141know for sure for certain he drives every day he's a regular bus driver I have another supervisor he drives whenever drivers are out he does the same as well um I have one supervisor that's had some some health issues here in the past but he is he drives if needed but I prefer him not to because if he the health issues that he has so those are the only folks that are in my offices that have CDLs now you said that uh there's hundred and something people in the district that do have does have CDLs you are you are absolutely correct there are but a lot of those people are in the buildings and so the thing of it is when I you look at that piece when you pull them out of the building

142who's going to be with the students so it's no way that we can make adjustments to help with that situation as far as uh pulling them in different air well pull them out the building is no way that we can make the adjustments inside the buildings have you spoken with those individuals to see if they're that's um that is something that we have we've discussed we want to make sure we can get a handle on everybody who has a CDL um but then again some of the CDL permits uh that they have do not give them um permission to transport students um they're Limited in what they can do and so that in itself is is a piece where the training comes in and we can get those folks aligned uh I need to go

143back to something that um um chairman Reagan mentioned just a moment ago in reference to the realignment U realignment is a extremely big issue um and it's something that and I agree with uh Mr danler that we first must find out what the problem is and if we can fix that problem uh with looking at the analysis and looking looking at the efficiency of those routes once we get excuse me get that in place excuse me we can then take a look at the realignment if that's what the board is going to want to do because as you know as we've done we've tried before that's an extremely large undertaking and it and it takes more than just the ones of us looking at that it takes um once again an outside individual who's going

144to come and do another analysis of what we've got so I think we need to First fix the problem and find out what our efficiencies are and there are some routes that you all said you've seen where you see three buses in one area um and I must say that Mr danler myself even the the supervisors we're following routes just to see what time frame is out there for those buses that are running and how many stops do we have and I report some of that to him on a regular basis so we have some of that d but it's going to take more people and folks who do that all the time to help us with it we're far along than what we have been and I think we've we've reached a point where

145we can get that to where we can really make an impact and it's not an overnight kind of thing it's a down dancer has worked extremely hard as well as everybody in the offices and we're working to make that happen so um it's going to take a little time and um there are some things that we will have in place by the end of the school year and and I know we can make this happen so you said you alongside with Mr Danel absolutely yes Mr Dan you guys are meeting on a regular basis about these issues well we talk yes ma'am on certain issues we talk about them yes ma'am about this issue with the have you have the things that you've coming up with have uh Mr Myers me meeting with you discussing

146those and being how we can improve these issues yes ma'am I've been making him aware of everything that I've I've uncovered yes ma'am do you feel like you're getting that support yes ma'am okay uh we're going to take a few more questions on this topic and then we'll move on is there any other questions at this time I see two hands uh Miss Johnson and then uh Reverend KY thank you Mr chair um Mr dancor thank you for the information that you shared with us tonight certainly a lot of it was new information to me and perhaps to some of the uh board members uh some of it sounds really promising and uh will help us moving forward you mentioned something that I particularly want to follow up on and that is the bus registration

147where parents will need to register their students if they plan to ride the bus when do you propose starting that task so there are some things I've been working with Miss Donna bar and her team and so there's some things that uh we have to put in place first before we can make that happen so in order for that to happen for the 25 26 school year um the goal would be to have that done by April at the latest and so we're not we don't even have it set up yet so what I'm going to have to do is push that to the 25 26 school year to get us to get everything going to get everything in place and then that following school year then that'll be able to happen but we'll still

148be able to have like if you bring your child to our school and you register that child for a different school you'll be able to do it Case by case but for the for everybody it would have to be that following school year you need at least a year to get everything set up to where it'll be able to flow like it needs to flow so that's I it was too many I had too many other big projects that we had going on and I'm only me and so um that was one of the projects that I had to make a decision I had to make a choice you know and that was one of the ones that I felt like the ones that we're focusing on now were a little bit more important at

149this moment and then we'll try to get to that point that in the next year so just to clarify if I'm understanding you correctly you will start the registration process in 2526 and it will go into effect 2627 that's correct thank you yes ma'am Mr dounel yes sir I share with my board memb a great report a thorough report appreciate that very much yes I'm asking a question simply because I don't know yes sir okay I am uh a former bus driver from ancient days yes sir in in the 60s when you were assigned a bus um the day before school start and you took that bus home and turned it in at the end of the school year right my my question is is there a state regulation or a district policy that prevents

150that from happening now so that drivers who come from extreme points don't have to come to uh Hill or something High to get a USS and do that every day you know can you that yes sir that's a state mandate the state yes sir the state they stopped us from doing that um long before I got here but they stopped us for doing that and um there's several reasons there's some things that probably have happened across the state and um but the way it is now we have to right now we can't we can can pick the buses up a week before school starts and we have to turn them in the the last week of school but they have to maintain those buses they want to be in control of the buses they want

151to see the buses they want to know where they are they are they own the buses so we kind of have to dance by their music I understand sir understand I understand but it just appears to me that it would make it so much easier the drivers so much easier on the drivers I think they got tired of paying toe bills getting buses out the ditch thank you thank you good answer yes sir all right uh Mr danler thank you so very much uh for your uh presentation yes sir um and at this time uh Dr Ro yes sir uh thank you Mr chair members of the board um Mr Sam Myers I think will stay seated and Mr Chris KO will come to give an update on mold remediation good evening again uh while

152Mr KO gets gets himself um arranged he came before you um few weeks ago and he gave some information in reference to the mold remediation and he's coming to provide just some details and some updates as requested you go good evening how are y'all doing this morning this evening um you know as as you knew before we had talked about baits what was going on there um and we had all the rooms tested after we had we had did the work to them and all the levels were low and acceptable last time I've had them retested U there are no unusual mold levels in the rooms at baits right now um we also had last time we had talked about Ean the girl's locker room um where we had I had it I had it

153u remediated in there and then had it uh repainted with the antimicrobial paint and everything had it retested everything is fine in there um I had um Oakland room 117 we had a report there that might be possible mold we had looked in that and there was none there but it is older carpet and the carpet needs to be replaced there's actually a a um uh where the Dr where the outside roof drain comes around to building when there's heavy rains tends to come over under there and I'm actually working on making sure it's not going to be going in that room anymore but the carpet where got damaged I'm going to take that out and we're going to put that in with um some VCT on the floor to go ahead and get that

154out that way you don't have anything that can actually hold anything in there um and then Lakewood Dr Ra had talked to me there were a few rooms in there that she was concerned about we'd have roof leaks in before um I'd looked at those and and had no unusual mole conditions in those rooms either all right Mr KO yes that's a notepad that's not any documentation from a company coming in or okay so that's the documentation right yes sir I got reports right here all right so where are those reports right there coming from from at laboratories I had I had um you know we have spoke about Don cob who does testing for the district um he uses he uses EHS Laboratories when he does when does testing and also had Emerald Incorporated

155which is a is a um can't think of the word environmental um engineer company here in Sumpter and they used EML emsl analytical Incorporated and they used those originally the test that we had at Bates originally I had Don Cobb to test those when they were all low this time I had had Emerald retest them and they also had the had low levels if you generally look usually usually a room that's like really good it has about 500 mold spores per cubic meter of air in the air and I know everybody goes wow that's that's a lot but if you get if you had had your your room cleaned by a company 1,200 is acceptable that is once they once they clean it 1 12200 would be fine if you get over 1 12200 you

156get 1300 spores or more you know that's considered considered higher levels and you want to start looking at having something done when um when I had Lo those at baits like uh this is classroom 51 we had 27 in there classroom 49 had 47 classroom 44 had 147 still very low um 43 had 67 42 367 classroom 39 had 200 uh classroom 40 had 127 classroom 38 had 60 37 had 320 36 had 210 35 had 220 34 had 107 and then the ambient which is the outside air had 120 when we originally had had the the issue in some of those rooms some of them they were over over, 1300 but sometimes the outside air was 3,500 so sometimes even just because there's you know as we discussed before there is mold in in

157every environment you go outside there's mold in there which is why they actually take the ambient to can you know compare what you have outside versus versus what is inside but since we have done this all the humidity levels are very low in those rooms um because you know like I told you we had we just had it's old buildings you know just like when we had the um the the community tour and we went around those buildings are extremely old so we're you know we're going to have issues with them but um what we're doing is we're trying trying to keep keep it from getting out of you know out of hand with anything all right you you brought up baits um so I want to ask that hallway that we were discussing it's

158the seventh grade hallway yes sir you all finished yes sir yeah s seventh grade hallway all the title has been redone um we put a moisture barrier down because you know like um we discussed before really I think I think Dr Kenny when we um we looked with the community tour I think it was that hallway was dedicated what was it 1958 57 um they didn't start put moisture barriers under the concrete until the mid-60s so that was why we had you had the the brown spots in the tile which were tesed weren't mold but it was just the the old glue the ground moisture coming up because there's no moisture Berry under there it was coming up through it and just making making the brown spots but it was also contributing to the overall

159humidity you know in the uh in the building but we did have we had ionizers I put in the air units there to help help take care of that we put the antimicrobial paint on the wall we insulated all the ceilings because when you took the ceiling tiles up there was no insulation um from the roof and it's just you know it's all a contributing factor to it but um but the main thing with the floors where we had the we had no moisture barrier under there so what we did when we took up the old tile that was down there and some rooms had had carpet in them also we took all that out and we put a moisture barrier down and then we put the new VCT on top of that and that's

160what we're continuing doing on the eighth grade Hall and Aras we haven't haven't seen it but we've actually we're still doing that we did have um we had two rooms on the e8th grade Hall that right now we have we have already done and we're doing two more this week Miss Fuller is going to be switching the U the kids out into the classrooms we've already done there and we're doing two more rooms and we're working toward getting it all done by the end of spring break we should have all the classrooms on that Hall done and have the hallway replaced also right um You you're talking about a classroom at bits to have the spots on the floor is that what you're saying that's that's not mold no sir that is that's what you're

161referring to right okay and but part of the moist it was still even though that wasn't mole that was basically the old the old glue with the with the ground moisture and from years's them mopping and getting you know every time they'll strip it and mop it you still get water down in there and it will make that old glue kind of matiz and it will migrate up through the old tile right if it's if it's if it's um vinyl tile if it's VCT now if it's ceramic tile you don't generally have a problem the ceramic tile doesn't let anything get through that's not a mole issue no that's just that's a repair issue yes sir but it's it was contributing to the mold because of the moisture being able to come up through there

162and getting humidity because like I say mold is caused just by excessive humidity in an area be it from a roof leak be it from a ground moisture coming in from the walls what have you it's a lot of money in flooring from past bonds and and and whatnot Mr Myers um so are we looking to repair that replace that flooring over there can we do that in in that that particular area that you're talking about we're in the process of doing it now that's why I'm saying the eighth grade the eighth grade Hall the classroom's on the eth grade Hall we're we're working them right now as we're we're going through I have two rooms that are already done and what Miss Fuller is going to do she's going to transfer students and staff

163out of two other classrooms into there we'll get two more rooms done and then we'll keep switching out until we get the classrooms done and then we'll get the hallway done also okay all right thank you any questions at this time Mr chair one question y right after Mr Austin then you sir so Mr KO yes not on any of the the buildings that you have discussed in your report what work took place in this very building today was there a in this building yeah was there any work that's done in this building today of replacing ceiling Tils or anything of that sort yes were there spots of ceiling tops like were water leaks or anything like that on the ceiling tops yes sir that's why they were being replaced was the building tested for

164mold in those you don't typically have it just because you have you can get a ceiling leak it's say it usually caused over repetitive repetitive um action for a long time A lot of times if you have say if you have a and generally ceiling leaks don't cause it as much as you do like if you've got a heat and air unit if you have um say if you have a heat and air unit where the duck may be not insulated properly or something other and you get cold air going it'll cause cause humidity and cause condensation and that'll drop down and it'll usually cause it but if you get you may have periodic roof leaks anywhere and we get them we get um we get reports of roof leaks and I get with roofers

165and uh and we address them but sometimes the ceiling tiles don't always get changed out sometimes the roof leak is fixed a long time before the TI actually get gets changed out and I'm simply asking that because I received a lot of calls today ahead of this meeting that work was going on in this building simply because we were holding a board meeting here and that the work would not have been completed if this meeting was not held here and so I'm saying that to say I know that you're simply the director of Maintenance but that cannot be the perception in this District that things don't get done unless board members are present or there's a meeting that's held in a facility we have to be proactive when it comes to maintaining our buildings we

166know that our buildings are well over 60 years old majority of our buildings are well over 60 years old I know that you you talked previously about Staffing in the maintenance department yes but we have to have a plan that comes from the maintenance department so that we as a board can support the work that you all are doing and so far I have not heard of a maintenance plan I mean every spring every fall we do bonds there's money allocated to do different projects but it seems like there's always a lag behind or things are not completed in a timely manner and so what can you as the maintenance director do to improve how maintenance is handled or maybe it's Mr Myers I'm not sure which one could answer the question to ensure that

167these things are are resolved in a timely manner because I mean the amount of calls that I receive today that maintenance has been in the building all day and I'm not saying this and let me make this really really clear in front of Dr wght as well this is not anytime this board is coming coming to any Department asking questions or bringing up issues and it's something that's been happening because it's been coming back to us the staff should not be attacked or intimidated for talking to board members and it's not just your department it's across the district and that has to stop because you you all cannot tell your staff to not talk to board members these are our neighbors these are the people that we go to church with these are the people

168that we see in the grocery store these are the people that are reason why we're all sitting here and so it becomes a problem when staff feels as though they're in trouble for coming to board members with complaints and that's not just directed to you that's across the district and it's been happening at least since the start of this semester and so Dr Wright I'm saying it publicly so it can't be said that nobody knew about it but it has to stop in this District because the staff is taking the issues that the board are raising out on the people for speaking up and speaking out because they're working these environments each and every day yes sir okay uh re CI to to the issue of being proactive yes sir I your opinion okay how

169can we best in the future get on the front side of detecting issues of this sort before becomes as Extreme as it was in one or two of these situations how can we what can we do what measures can would you recommend that we take to ensure that we we we stop the leap before it becomes a flood yes sir um communication is the key um be behind me you see the fir the first line of defense principal see things and they alert me about it you know vice principal see me and all the principles they have my phone number they know didn't call me at any time and if they see an issue we'll come we'll come look at it now you know some sometimes if they call call me on Thursday it may

170be Friday when I before I get there it may be Monday I have typically this this past Friday I had 130 phone calls in one day 130 that's not counting texts or emails that's just different you know different principles calling me Vice princip's calling me my workers calling me about issues and addressing but initially when they get they give me the call we go out and we'll we'll check it out so that that is the that is the key to it is is communication if we don't communicate if we don't you know if we don't uh Let each other other know what's going on you have you have no idea but when we see it we jump in and we try to get it get it taken care of and there was miscommunication on you

171know the last time and we just we tried to to alleviate that and and with the point to with being older buildings there you know there are things you have to you have to kind of look around and notice them we've we've also talked about with with things on playgrounds um you know when kids get out and they they playing on swings we depend on the teachers now my Carpenter staff they'll do they do periodic inspections but you depend on teachers you depend on on principls you depend on Vice principles to and custodial staff to alert you to something and then when you when you see it you can address it all right Miss Johnson yes Mr chair Mr KO um you just mentioned that you get phone calls texts and emails all the time

172we're all human um is there an electronic method by which schools administrators whoever should be reporting these uh problem areas to you cuz I I mean I don't even profess to be able to remember everything because I can't and if you're getting as many calls as it sounds like you are emails or texts I could see things being lost along the way yes so what is the formal process and can we hold our uh School staff accountable to making certain that these things are reported in such a manner well we have we have a system called School dude where workor are put in um some are put in as you know as an emergency some are not um you know some are just a normal work order and you and you get Stu but it

173is a lot of times it is a staffing issue of getting you know not with necessarily a mold issue but I'm saying with just general work orders is getting them taken care of but that's why I tell them to call me if if there's a if there is a mold issue because I can I can see that a work order may go in I don't see every single work order that comes in when work orders go in they're assigned to the supervisors supervisors assign them to their you know their employees and then they get taken care of but when it's issues like that I want everyone to call me and we have you know I've sent out an email before telling all the principles let me know and they do they do a great job

174with if they if they see something just you know like we were talking about the ones at at Lakewood you know Dr Wright talked to me and she said um she said hey we've got these rooms we think there may be something there so I came over and I looked at them and and had them tested just to make sure sometimes you can see stuff like that for the most part when you're looking at a lot of times you can see it um me and U Miss we were talking today there's a room in the science room at Bates you had a concern about I had that tested today I went I went and looked at it and I didn't see anything overly that was you know that was appeared to be mold but I

175had the had Don Cobb come in and he did testing air quality testing in there today and I'll have those results back soon but it's a it's different are but we had already did the antimicrobial paint and stuff in that area being proactive to get it before there was an issue in there but I like I say the principles they commun unate well with me and we work well together and we try to try to get everything taken care of in a timely manner like I say we're and in that one it was just a it was just there were some rooms that were really bad and then you know and a lot of the other rooms that were done there weren't necessarily in as bad a shape as those but that's why we wanted

176to go in and go through that whole hallway and uh change the insulation and everything out and get those taken care of and get their you know get the flooring done because when I see that there's an issue there with the moisture coming through the floor in one area if the building's just as old I said you know go ahead and get it taken care of in those other areas also and do it so okay and thank you for clarifying that these were mold ISS or these are mold issues where you're getting these calls or somewhat of emergencies that people are kind of following up on I still think it is important for them to document whatever those situations are in addition to giving you a call a text or an email yes Ma and

177they and they do that in school dude also okay I just I I always tell them that's like when um like say if we have an athletic event and they need air to run say they're having a basketball game and they're needing air to run to a certain time I always tell them yes you can put something in but call me because I will respond much better when I talk because I can I can jump on it and I know it's you know I was just using the multiple the mobile phone calls is a lot of times there there is so much going on throughout the district with 32 facilities you know you just have you do you you know you constantly have to stay on top of stuff and I I try to do

178a good job with it thank you yes ma'am all right thank you Mr K yes sir thank you good uh Mr chair excuse me Mr chair members of the board it's time for uh item 4.5 which is coming uh from the office of academic and uh Mrs Pamela rhods will be joining us um for that presentation fiscal year 26 Title One allocations and uh m s Spearman is preparing to join us as well good evening Dr Reagan Dr wght remainder of the school board I am before you this evening to give you updates on a previous proposal that we um presented to you a few weeks back and so it was the request of the board to come back to you to update you on um information after getting feedback from both this body as

179well as the title one principles and so you should have a copy of the presentation hopefully um so we're going to be going along with that so the first thing is just going through a quick review again of what I presented to you a few weeks back our current Title One program we have 15 elementary schools four middle schools in our um FY 25 Title One program um and we have all the elementary schools being served through title one because of the grade Band Method which is early intervention instructional methods and also serving those schools that are 75% or above in pupils in poverty and we have no choice in serving those um those schools that have 75% because by Federal Regulation it is required to provide them with Title One um federal funds because

180of their high percentage of students so the next slide is again just a quick review of the things that are allowable to be purchased with federal funds through Title One um it's it goes from extended programs of such as before and after school programs academic interventionist instructional staff retain and recruit Personnel workshops for parents as well as engagements for families instructional supplies and materials instructional technology and professional development for teachers and administrators also on the next slide it has our current Title One schools that are being served at each level we have 15 elementary schools that are being served and these were the numbers that I presented to you you um a few weeks back to show you the ranking from the highest to the lowest of the elementary schools of their pupils in poverty

181and then we have our four middle schools that are being served with their rankings of um their rankings in order from highest to lowest and we have four of those and currently for this current fiscal year which is fiscal year 25 we do not have any high schools being served because at this point in time none of our high schools meet the 75% required to be served of pupil in poverty um and so that's why we have that for um the high schools so the next slide you you will see that I have the big red word that says previously proposed changes because again um we talked about the grade band of serving them for early interventions and we wanted to look at only serving those schools on the elementary level that present that had

182that 75% or above so with that we were looking at eliminating five of our schools because they did not meet that required 75% to be served and so we wanted to look at um and the reason behind that was because the amount of money if we brought on the three schools that were very close to that 75% requirement were two high schools and one Middle School and that would have taken a lot of money away from um off the table which would have really been detrimental to the schools as well as making sure that our highest need schools um have enough money to really take care of their students um that we saw that had a higher nature of p and poverty and those five schools that we were proposing at that time to take

183off were again alist Drive Elementary Milwood Elementary Oakland Primary sha Heights Elementary and high hills now of course those schools currently don't have 75% or above people's in poverty but if they ever reach that we had no choice but to to um serve them through title one because it would have been required so that meant also looking at the three schools again of Lakewood Crestwood and Bates possibly being identified as Title One schools but we will not have official notification about who will be joining the ranks of being title one until mid to late May because we get those numbers and percentages from the state department now we do pull data at the district level to kind of give us um a temperature check as far as where schools are as far as their percentages

184of pups in poverty so we can start preparing them with different scenarios as well as getting different documents that are required for federal funding such as comprehensive needs assessments their preliminary plans that have to be submitted having stakeholder meetings and looking at things um that they would probably want to cover with federal funds so it won't be such a last minute and rushed situation so with those three schools we wanted to kind of give them a heads up that there possibly will be tital one schools but again we won't be able to officially name them Title One schools until we get those official numbers from the state department mid to late May so these this is an added slide as far as based on feedback of course before I even presented the information to this

185body a few weeks back I met with those F the principles of those five schools as well as the principal of those three schools that possibly will be named to let them know that I was going to be presenting that proposal to you as a board um as well as we wanted to get feedback from them in that setting and then of course when we we wanted to get feedback from you once we presented that information to you and based on that feedback that we got from the principals as well as you being the board of trust trustees um basically just to put in a nutshell none of you guys were feeling us taking those five schools off of Title One funding and so we did take that feedback very seriously and so with that

186um you know we we met with the principals after a principal meeting or at the end of a principal meeting I should say and they gave us their rationals those five schools particularly they gave us the rationals on why they think they really should stay um title one as well as the information that you guys shared with us when we presented that proposal originally and so therefore at this time we are definitely changing our proposal we are going to and would like to keep those five schools on board as Title One um and then of course we would definitely get the numbers from the state department in mid to late May to see if they officially will be Title One schools um with that then the next thing the next steps that we have taken

187to prepare those schools um not only those five schools but all current Title One schools um what we did we gave them Financial scenarios that they can begin some pre-planning to prepare for the FY 26 um because again we don't get those official numbers until mid to late may but what we did we gave them scenarios that gave them if we had flat funding and what I mean by that is that if we had the same amount of money given to us in tital one funds as we currently have this current fiscal year what would you do to allocate that money and that those scenarios also included bringing on those three new schools so we wanted them to have all scenarios in front of them to plan or pre-plan I should say for FY 226

188so they got um the estimated cost all those links that are in this PowerPoint there are estimated cost of transferring um the remainder of the behavior interventionist and Title One funding as well as instructional coaches to excuse me the behavior intervention to General funds as well as instructional coach at each School the cost for those and Miss Beerman will talk more about that in a minute also they got the information about the current cost of personnel that's in their school that's in their Title One plan and then the scenarios I just mentioned they got estimated allocations at 100% of the current Title One funding if we stayed the if we got the same amount of money that we got this school year but also bringing on those three new schools and then it we ranked

189it down to if you we only got 90% of the money and then 80% 75% and 50% so they got all of those calculations so they can have plan A B C D and E so when we get our official allocations in mid to late may they can pretty much see which at which scenario was the closest to the amount of money that they'll end up getting whether those three schools come on board or not or if you know basically U we get more money less money they already have PL different plans that they can consider to bring to the table to make their FY 26 plan and then we also gave you the board all of the sub School District positions that are paid with any federal funds that we receive so you can

190just have that for information so some factors that I really need for you guys as a board to consider as well is that again when it comes to Federal funding it's very fluid it fluctuates from year to year um and like I stated before this current school year we got a over $600,000 cut in Title One a loone that we did not expect um and so we don't know about our official allocations until we get it from the state department from in May um and so we were told all year long that we were going to be at flat funding from the state department as well as the federal government for this current school year but when we got our official allocations we had 600 we had a $600,000 cut which was very surprising so

191I just want to make sure that the board understands when it comes to Federal funding it is very very fluid um it it does it's very um unpredictable even though you could be told one thing when you get your allocation it could be totally something else the next bullet on there again is just reiterating that we don't get the allocations until mid to late May um and and we actually hold what we call our Title One boot camp which we also have all of our schools come and with the support of my team and we help them write their plans look at their comprehensive needs assessment look at data to see what their needs are so we can write their plans that are aligned to those needs the third bullet on that slide is in

192red because I think a lot of people don't know and a lot of principles didn't realize this as well is that once you have a title once you have any activity stry or Personnel that's in a Federal grant that's moved to General funds um which right now um we want to consider moving the instructional coaches and the remainder of the behavior interventionist to General funds um again miss Beerman will speak to that in a few minutes but once we move any activity Personnel strategy from a federal fund to General funds it cannot go back to a Federal grant to be funded and the reason for that is federal grants are considered supplemental for supplemental reasons that means above and beyond of what is actually needed and so we have to be very careful about you

193know suggesting that oh yeah we can just put that in general funds and maybe having a mindset it can go back into a grant soon after that it does not work like that once you pull again once you pull out an activity or Personnel from a Federal grant it cannot go back to the Federal grant once it's put in general funds so we have to be very mindful of that as we're making decision decisions when it comes to that so if Miss spearmint does decide to pull the instructional coaches as well as the behavior interventionist into General funds if we get a lot more money in two or three years in federal grants we can't say oh yeah we moving back to federal grants because it does not work like that it has to stay

194in general funds okay um and so again we all we have to consider the long-term um sustainability of those fundings of the aformentioned items and then Miss Spearman we're going to the impact and impl implications of the general funds specifically of those two positions I just mentioned which were their instructional coaches and the behavior interventionist because based on the feedback that we got from the principls as well as from you as the Board of Trustees we know that the instructional coaches play a critical part in our schools and if we get the three schools to come on board as well as any federal funding Cuts so a lot of our titlean schools won't won't um any longer be able to to afford the instructional coaches that they're affording in their Title One plans and so

195with that the uh principles really pleaded with my team as well as Miss Spearman and the elt about considering to put those instructional coaches in general funds if they're no longer being um being able to be afforded to be paid by federal grants and so with that Miss Spearman we're going to um the information as far as um how much she's willing to possibly consider with General funds of helping these these current Title One schools as well as maybe the new title one schools coming on board for FY 26 um and so with that I could take any questions before Miss Beerman goes into anything and then we can go from there all right do we have any questions at this time okay um you you said that we cannot let's say we have five

196um people where we were paying through a Federal grant um maybe they're Ela specialist I don't know just whatever but we paid for them with a special Grant they're now going to be in general fund and and I understand what you said that those those same people cannot go back to the grant however couldn't we just get three more that were never hired in the first place three new ones under the grant the position no that position is it we call some planning which is illegal yeah so we can't do that once you have once you have the same title and job job description into a grant you can't put some in general and some in a um some in general and some in a grant that's called some planning okay but here let me

197ask you this but let's say you have um the instructionist but then then but you could then you could hire an Ela specialist though that was never hired in the first place so what I'm saying is there's still ways to enrich the classroom instruction even though uh because I know some I I visit the classrooms and I know they hire not only those who are you know instructional Specialists but they also have Ela people and they have math people so you you can enrich that classroom even though you cannot reuse them for that Grant you just there are other people with different names and they have they have different Specialties right exactly so we're going to increase the uh in the instruction in the classroom because we have a variety of different kind of people

198so it's not all gloom and doom about losing them because of the grant we can still find ways to get different kinds of help in the classroom right that's true if if there's enough money to do that through the grant yeah it's again dependent on funding and also to make it clear um truste Disney when it comes to putting any Personnel in Grants the state department is very very specific about looking at job descriptions because some principl like well can't we can't we just change the title of this and it won't be no they look at they don't just look at the change of the title they look at the job descriptions too and if they marry each other for the most part they're going to say this is the same job even though it's

199a different title of the position so we have to still be very careful about that but when it comes to interventionist versus um instructional coaches they do have um varied job descriptions so we can still keep inter as we operate now we can still keep interventionist in federal grants and the instructional coaches in General funds if Miss fman chooses to do that without supplanting because they do have different job descriptions thank you all right any other questions yeah Mr chair Miss Rose and Miss Spearman um when it comes to these positions that that we're having this conversation about right now is it not possible to charge part of their time to Title One and charge the other time other part of their time to the general fund can you be paid can a person be

200paid out of two separate funding sources yes and no so we have to be very careful with that because when it comes to their time their their time as far as if we say 50% of their time out of title one we have to make sure that it's documented that 50% of their time truly is dedicated to top that title one job description so we have to be very careful about that so we can't can do that but it's it when it comes to paperwork and documentation it's very tedious mhm that was just food for thought um that's something that I do every day making sure in a state agency that time is charg to the correct Federal grant so that's why I was asking that question could that be done in the school district

201as well yeah and so with that too um trusty Austin we have to make sure that when it comes to again what we have is a par um the par form and they would have to document basically every hour of what they do um versus to show that 50% of their time was dedicated to what they were written in the title one plan versus 50% of their time that was written for the general fund so again it's it can be done but it's very very tedious and a lot of documentation so when we get audited if we get audited which we do probably every you we do every 3 to four years we have to make sure all that paperwork is in place unless we'll have a finding and we lose funding so that's why

202we try to avoid splitting when it comes to Personnel splitting duties or uh funding with Personnel we either do it straight title of straight Grant or straight General funds because we can actually lose funding if the proper documentation is not taken and in place when we get audited all right thank you the effect of having the instructional coaches being placed in general fund fund would be an additional $1.2 million to include salary and Fringe it would also not include uh having any instructional coaches at the high school level even though we have AP instructional APS again we talked about that framework today um our budget meeting started yesterday so we've been budget meetings all day every day this week and we talked about the possible effectiveness of having an instructional AP so there is a

203um strategy that we are looking in where we would hire an additional four instructional coaches to support those high schools and that would be another $2 to $300,000 in additional instructional coaches that would then be fully paid by the general fund uh the behavior interventionists currently paid by the grant total $266,000 if we were to put those also in the general fund so again the to right here for that 1.5 1.5 1.5 billion no that's without the high schools that's without the high school that's without the high school okay so the with The Fringe it would be 1.5 million doar minus the high schools and since we talked about that today in budget about the ineff the possible ineffective structure of having instructional AP we would use a um four hire four additional instructional coaches

204and that would be another three to $400,000 so we're looking at about $2 million after salary and Fringe total to include having instructional coaches at every school and then for our behavior interventionist that are currently paid by the grant we are paying $266,000 in salary and franch and franch and franch for those schools that pay their behavior interventionist via Federal funding so if we were have done all this into the general fund we look at about 2.3 million all right any questions Mr chair yes so if we're saying $2.3 million total to have the general fund take care of instructional coaches and behavior interventionists for all the schools that potentially could qualify for title $1 correct no that's just for the current ones to the current ones yeah it's not including the two to three

205100,000 for additional at the you said the I'm sorry did you say the 2.3 or the 1.5 2.3 yeah that is with the new ones I'm sorry that is with the new ones so with the 2.3 and this is just for for conversation if it's $2.3 million fiscal year 205 the district used $3 million of the general fund correct we use $3 million of the fund balance of the fund balance and in using that $3 million of the fund balance 700,000 was allocated to5 District level positions correct in that that budget no no that was a separate line item for increase for the general fund so it was a separate line item so it was it was in addition to the general fund that was part of the increases so every year we start with

206a base budget which will be so we increased the base budget by it by that and then the 3 million was additional on top of that the 3 million so what I'm what I'm trying to get at is that we increased the base budget by $700,000 for district level positions but there's a question before us are we able to use 2.3 or cover $2.3 million when it comes to the actual day-to-day education of our children that's a problem for me that we're even even having to consider that when we talk about expanding the district office in our schools and our classrooms are struggling every presentation that we've had tonight spoke to a need for support in our classrooms support in our schools support in our communities all right any other questions at this time all

207right certainly thank you thank you uh for your presentation at this [Applause] time excuse me Mr chair members of the board we're at 4.6 now from the office of Finance which is capital Bond projects Mrs Spearman and Mr Meyers will uh be presenting any that okay um in presenting this I had gotten two directives on um doing the capital projects review for this for this board meeting um I was directed to uh list this by location and to do a fiveyear on this and so that's what I've prepared um and we'll start with the uh 2018 Bond spring again I won't go through all of this this is a massive document of 90 pages but to start I wanted to let you know how we ran this report and so 520 was the bond code

208for 2018 spring Bond and there is where the Maywood field house concession was created um and it was budgeted initially well it was it has a current budget of 356 we have year-to-date expenditures of 222,000 and encumbrances of 38 so we expect to give or take to have remaining budget of $122,000 remaining um and this uh may not include any small repairs like um caulking um cleanup that type of thing and so we're estimating to have a significant portion of the B of the budget remaining for this and so of course we would need your direction on what to do with that remaining um normally the procedure because this was such a Hot Topic and the board's eyes was on this project we normally would put any remaining budget in other facilities so that we

209can support any other projects that may go over um but again we're going to ask for direction on what to do with the any remaining balance related to this Maywood project and then as far as the status of the Maywood project we can get a summarized status from uh Mr Meyers regarding that the work that has been done on the Maywood project has um been completed we're waiting for um uh Miss dancer's uh cleaning team to go into the building and and clean um they'll wipe down walls and um just clean the building so that it's ready to go everything has been sealed there is some caulking that still needs to be done uh from the contractor himself and that's going to be done very very soon um we ran into some difficulties with the

210uh ice maker and we've got to uh drill a hole so we can put the drain line in but that item is in place take maybe an hour to to do that and the building is up and ready to go as soon as it's clean all right all right we'll jump to um I'll talk with the major projects that are um in existence uh right now open uh for our walkie talk walkietalkie radios that exist in fun 524 um if you remember fund 524 was done in 2020 it spring of 2020 and those walkie-talkies we have the main portion of this project was paid from Esser which is why the balance remained in the capital projects and that balance of funding is being used of course for our transportation maintenance and other needed requests regarding

211those uh devices um as it relates to Environmental Testing fees of course we always have to do some type of allocation routinely to have monies available for this currently they exist in fund 525 which was the 2020 fall Bond and 532 which is the 2024 spring Bond and those annual fees for underground testing at Brun Hill and do so we always have an allocation for that because we're just going to always have to do that right yes yes sir um as it relates to the Hill Crest Stadium Renovations that's fund 526 which was the 2021 spring bond that program that pro project is completed another hot item uh fund 526 fund 526 it's the 2021 spring Bond it was uh with window replacement the repair work of some units um will be again next the

212next week at Crestwood awaiting delivery of these units and so ad Lamyra they're all included in that scope of work uh two more schools will be added to this project now that we have a better understanding of what the costs are that are involved um originally only three schools were included so some efficiencies happen with that uh great deals with the vendor so we're trying to maximize those dollars for window replacement as it relates to the hottest topic for this District the Crestwood Athletic Field the Press Box is now installed uh with Back Field and final grading around the new bleacher areas the sidewalk is done and the final walk through has occurred already it occurred yesterday okay and um we will need to further discuss this project um I think I've made a request

213to discuss this project in length if you are familiar with my request later correct is that when you want to speak about that or we want to talk more about that now no no definitely not tonight okay yeah we don't have to talk about it tonight okay um and you can actually stop there um if we have any questions at this point from that report from any board members we'll open it up before we wrap it up okay Miss Spearman yes sir you stated that you received different directives for this presentation are you able to give us a report where it shows the fund like how the the bond was issued in the projects that were highlighted under each one of those I I can provide that because what I want to see is what

214is remaining in each one of the funds and how we may be able to move that to other facility needs or something of that sort but I think it would be helpful if we could see it based on each fund as opposed to seeing that here we have every school and where the funds are going in those schools but I think that would be helpful as well and it would cut down on the 90 Pages yes it all right and uh I I have a copy of it from previous times um and so if the request was a little bit no confusing or whatever I did find a copy of it yes um where I can share it with you so you can see kind of sort exactly what the request should have looked like

215even if it didn't come across that way right okay and I think this is what you have is just going back five years okay all right yes because I did get that email with that example okay and we'll get it straight I'll speak with the superintendent and then we'll we'll get it straight sounds okay all right all right thank uh Mr chair I think that ends the superintendent report uh for uh 22525 all right thank you thank you thank you Mr superintendent we're now down to item number six 6.1 excuse me item number five 5.1 executive session do we have a motion Mr chair yes I'd like to make a motion to enter to an executive session for discussion of individual student matters transfers in and out of district and the monthly Personnel report appointment

216compensation promotion demotion discipline termination and or release of an employee in contractual matters is there a second there been a motion in a second to enter into executive session for discussion of individual student matters transfers in and out of the district the monthly Personnel report appointment compensation promotion demotion discipline termination and or release of an employee and contractual matters any discussion hearing none you may vote your pleasure at this time all right vote passes at this time uh ladies and gentlemen thank you for your time and your presentations tonight um we will now enter into executive session if you're not here when we return certainly have a wonderful and restful evening thank you e e e we're now ready to return to open session and uh upon consensus with no objections we will return to

217open session at this time hearing none we're now back in Open Session we're now move to item number seven action required 7.1 is there any action related to Executive session at this time hearing none we'll move to item 7.2 monthly Personnel report do we have a motion Mr chair yes I'd like to make a motion to approve the Personnel report for Monday Tuesday I'm sorry Tuesday February 25th 2025 as presented second a motion and a second to approve the Personnel report for Tuesday February the 25th 2025 as presented excuse me any discussion any discussion hearing none you may vote your pleasure at this time um Rend KY are you voting by hand did all right vote is unanimous and it passes at this time item number eight consent agenda um and again with without any

218objections uh the consent agenda can stand approve at this time all right hearing none the consent agenda now stands approved item number nine closing of the meeting certainly we want to uh thank each and every one of you for being with us tonight um from our building administrators and support staff as well as the administrative staff from the district level executive staff our superintendent and certainly to our technology staff tonight as well as Miss Scott who's here with us here at Alis drive and certainly again to uh Alis Drive principal for allowing us to be in the building tonight we want to uh simply say thank you for allowing us to be here all right at this time ladies and gentlemen this meeting is now adjourned e